Tempest In A Teapot
by AvocadoLove
Summary: Or, how Bucky watches his best friend die in his place, wakes seventy years in the future, takes up Captain America's shield, joins a group of super heroes, and finally finds forgiveness in himself. (Based in the Avenger's Movie 'verse)
1. Chapter 1

**Note:** I've been working on this on and off for a month, and decided with the new Winter Soldier trailer it was time to post. This is NOT Winter Soldier compliant, but may have some spoilers. (I don't actually know the whole story and don't care to until I've seen the movie, but I've picked up enough from Tumblr and fics to get the jist.)

* * *

It happened in a blink of an eye. The moment Bucky would play over and over again in his (unexpectedly) long life began when he thought - knew - he was going to die.

Metal and ice made for a hell of a combination. In the morning briefing, Steve had told all the Commandos to be careful, had even pinned Bucky with an especially severe look. Bucky had grinned right back at his friend and raised an eyebrow. "Yeah Cap, I'll be just as careful as you."

The height of the train tracks overlooking the Alps mountain pass was even worse than any of them had thought, the wind and enemy resistance on the train stronger. Damn those HYDRA weapons.

When Bucky's fingers slipped, when he lost his grip on the train car, he wasn't surprised. Only disappointed in himself. His pin-wheeling arms only found air, and he wondered in the back of his mind if hitting ground would hurt or if dying was like going to sleep.

Then impossibly strong fingers clamped on his wrist, yanking out a sound from Bucky that was half a whoop, half a scream.

"Gotcha," Steve breathed, and with an effortless yank, pulled Bucky back in.

Bucky flashed a grin and opened his mouth to say something he wouldn't remember later-quips between him and Steve came as easily as breathing. Always did, even when they were orphans struggling and starving together. When Steve was skinny and sick, and Bucky, who was older by given value of two months, was brother to him in heart, if not in blood.

There was a flash of movement. A HYDRA-goon comin' round the corner. Bucky raised his gun, got a shot, but not before the goon took one of his own.

The blue blast hit Steve's upraised shield. HYDRA weapons couldn't punch through, of course, but the power of it knocked Steve back a step. A step he didn't have.

Steve's fingers released Bucky's wrist, whether in shock or instinct that he didn't want to drag his friend down, too, Bucky never knew. Their eyes locked for one horrible second, and Bucky was almost bowled over by the _knowing _in them.

"No-" Bucky reached out, but Steve was an inch too far away. Already gone.

Steve fell off the train in silence. Bucky was the one who screamed.

* * *

**O O O O**

* * *

Bucky knew how all the men talked: Captain America couldn't die. He ran faster than a derby horse, was smarter than any ten soldiers put together. They'd made him with Detroit steel in his blood.

The first time after Bucky had the chance to really take Steve in after he'd saved him and the 107th, he'd half believed it himself. What else could turn a shrimp like Steve into this guy - the perfect soldier, only with Steve's heart of gold? They used to sit 'round the campfire and joke that Steve had punched Hitler in the face over two-hundred times.

Steve couldn't be dead.

The Commandos went after him, that night, soon as they'd delivered Zola into custody. There were rumblings from the higher ups of keeping them around for a debriefing, but no one made a move to stop them.

Bucky found Steve the next morning. The air crisp and cold. His body was broken over bare rocks and snow, blood in his blonde hair, shield laying a foot away where it had fallen. His best friend was gone.

They were wrong. Steve was as mortal as any man. But as Bucky knelt and wept over his friend, he'd find out later he was wrong, too. Steve had died, but Captain America... he was immortal.

* * *

**O O O O**

* * *

Bucky lost time, after that. The Commandos were leaderless and on standby as the top brass figured out what to do with Zola. Between shots of whiskey, Bucky hoped they were wringing every secret out of him, slow and painful like.

He drank and he remembered, and then he drank some more. Steve's blue, knowing eyes stared at him from the back of his own memories. He couldn't even look Peggy in the face as he gave Steve's shield over to her. Though he'd had a vague memory of her slapping him - not out of anger but, he thought, maybe to sober him up.

Hadn't worked.

It was Colonel Phillips who came to see Bucky at last. Bucky had woken only an hour ago and was having his first whiskey alone in a bar that hadn't opened yet. Well, he'd leave cash in the till.

"You didn't always used to be a crack-shot," Phillips said, sitting down. Even soapy-eyed as he was, Bucky saw that stress and grief had made the Colonel's eyes into pits. His face near to leather with wrinkles.

"No," Bucky said because it was the truth. "I got better with practice." Not a good enough shot to save his best friend, though.

The Colonel gave him a long look, then stole Bucky's tumbler, knocking it back himself. Because he was his superior officer, Bucky didn't object other than to pour himself another drink. The bottle was nearly empty, but being a war-hero meant he didn't have to scrounge very far when he wanted another.

"I have your files, son," Phillips said. "You improved, shall we say _exponentially_ after Rogers rescued you and the 107th."

Bucky favored him a sarcastic smile. "Funny what a brush with death will do for your constitution."

"Funny what human experimentation will do, you mean," he said, voice as dry as tinder. "As I said, I got a good look at your files, Sergeant. You came out of that hellhole stronger, quicker, smarter. You were damn near the only one able to keep up with Rogers on one of his bad days - and if you open your mouth and tell me it's Brooklyn guff, I will knock you on your ass right now. Do you understand me?"

Bucky closed his mouth.

Phillips looked at him hard. "Now, you and I both know we can't prove a thing. 'specially since there's no point of reference to compare you two."

"I wasn't going to let you cut his body into pieces and ship it off to labs," Bucky growled. He hadn't cared if he got court-martialed for it - still didn't. He and the Commandos had burned Steve's body where he was found. It had been the least Bucky could do.

"Steve Rogers gave his body for the good of his country-"

"He gave his life for the war," Bucky snapped, and the still mostly sober part of him wailed at speaking to an officer like this. But with Steve gone he found he didn't give a goddamn about much else. Not anymore. "That's all you can ask of a man. We were his friends. We-_I_ made the call to give him a fit ending he would have wanted. Not Hogan or the others. Me."

"Give me that." Phillips snatched the glass from Bucky's fingers. "You're not too bright when you're drinking, Barnes. Anyone ever tell you that?"

"Only every time I drink," he muttered, sitting back in his chair. He didn't bother telling Phillips that the only way he could _stay_ drunk was to chase them one after another.

The Colonel ran his hand down his face, pulling his skin taunt and smooth for a moment before glaring at Bucky. "Zola gave up the location of the last base, and Stark thinks he can get us there if we move out soon. I'm not here to bring you up on charges, Barnes. I'm here to promote you. The Commandos need a Captain." He paused and let that sink in for a second, his next words full of weight. "America needs a Captain."

Bucky stared at him. Then he laughed. It cut short when he saw that Phillips was serious.

"No," he said. Then again, louder. "No."

He stumbled to his feet and left. Court martial be damned. His skin chilled. He made it a few blocks before he bent over and heaved.

* * *

**O O O O**

* * *

The rest of the day Bucky drank only water and water-downed beer that the locals served. With all the drinking he'd done over the last week, he should have felt like he'd been flattened by a truck, but there was truth in what Phillips had said. It was harder for Bucky to get drunk - not impossible, not like it had been for Steve - but harder. He sobered more quickly, too, and he hadn't been hungover once since... since he'd been captured.

He never given it much thought until now. European drinks just weren't what they were back home, was all. And the truth was, he didn't like to think much on what he'd gone through before Steve had saved him. Being strapped down and stuck with round after round of needles - well. It was the stuff nightmares were made of, and nightmares had no business in the war.

Steve had asked him about it once, but whatever the look had been on Bucky's face convinced him not to ask again. That had been that.

Bucky was pouring over the files sent over by HQ on the new HYDRA base when he heard a knock on the door. He glanced up, surprised to see Peggy. Even more unpleasantly surprised to see her gripping Steve's shield between two tightly clenched hands.

"Miss Carter," he said, standing. He knew Peggy must have cried over Steve, but now her face was composed. Her makeup perfect. She was one hell of a looker, even with her eyes flinty and hard.

"You're an idiot," she said, striding up to him. She threw down the shield by his feet. He winced at the unmusical clang, but stopped himself from picking it up.

"He would have wanted you to have it," she said.

Then she strode off.

Slowly, Bucky reached to picked up the shield, running a hand over the rim. It felt like velvet at the edges. He let out a long breath.

* * *

**O O O O**

* * *

They had to take the Captain America uniform in a little, of course. Bucky wasn't a slight man, but he didn't have Steve's size, especially in the shoulders.

It felt garish to be wearing it at all, but Phillips had insisted. At least the shield was light in his hands, and if Bucky didn't have Steve's pure power when it came to hand-to-hand, well. Phillips wasn't wrong when he said Bucky was a crack shot.

Red Skull knew Bucky wasn't the real Captain America the moment he'd laid eyes on him, but by then Bucky's blood was up, and he was smart enough to keep out of grappling range while his shield and mouth did the talking.

He laughed aloud as Red Skull held up the magic blue cube and burned up right in front of him. Probably wasn't right for Captain America to gloat at the death of one of his enemies, but Bucky's heart was sore over Steve, and it wasn't like he was the real thing anyway.

This had been about revenge. Pure and simple.

The laugh died when he went to the aero-plane controls and saw that he'd either have to take the whole thing down or blow up the Eastern Seaboard. Worse, two of the mini aero-planes had gotten away with their payload intact. Bucky had tried to stop them when they took off, but there was only one of him and everything had happened so fast...

Once again, he hadn't been quick enough.

He toggled the radio to advise base, even as he took up the yoke and prepared to bring her down. Ahead of him stretched fields of ice.

"Two planes with full payload intact," he said, getting on the horn. "I tried-I got most of them, but I'm sure at least two got away. I think they were headed to New York and Atlanta. Maybe D.C. I'm not sure."

"We read you loud and clear," Colonel Phillips said, his voice tinny over the speakers. "You've done good, son."

Bucky shook his head. It had gone all cock-eyed at the end, with only him to fight on the plane. If Steve were there, they could have done it together. Made sure none of the mini aero-planes took off at all.

Red Skull was gone, but that didn't mean a damn if it's biggest payload made its destination. "I can't let this hit US soil." His fingers curled over the yoke. "I... I'm going to take her down."

There was a pause and Colonel Phillips voice was quiet. "Godspeed, Captain."

He nodded tightly. "Make sure the whole damn country knows about the incoming HYDRA planes. Shoot them down."

"We will. Whatever it takes."

There was a crackling over the radio, then Peggy's voice. "Bucky? We all... He would have been proud."

As the nose of the plane tilted downward and the world filled with ice and snow, Bucky hoped so. He planned to ask Steve about it, when he met up with him again.

* * *

**O O O O**

* * *

The universe, Bucky thought, a few hours later (give or take seventy years - though he didn't know that at the time) liked to play jokes on him. One after another.

"Why aren't I dead?" was the first thing he asked the pretty redhead nurse who'd come to take his temperature or give him a sponge-bath, or... Bucky blinked and took in the length of her again. Hello nurse. She was even more of a looker than Peggy.

She smiled at him. "Good Morning, Captain. How are you feeling?"

"Captain?" Bucky repeated. Then it all came back to him. He looked around his bare room, and at the way the woman held herself. Not like a caregiver, but wary, perfectly balanced. Like a fighter. And the radio... "Hey," he said, turning to it. "Wait, I've heard that game before. I watched it at Ebbets Field with Ste-" Bucky sat bolt upright, heart in his throat. "Where am I?"

The woman's smile was forced. "You're at army U.S. headquarters in Los Angeles. If you lie back I can take your temperature."

Bucky was having none of that. He stood, feeling a flash of wooziness that quickly subsided. "What's going on here?" he asked, advancing a step.

He didn't expect her to strike at him with a punch that would have done any bruiser in the Commando's proud. Bucky reacted on instinct, honest, he wasn't the type to hurt a dame, and knocked her fist away. Her sharp kick, he deflected to the flank. He grabbed her arm and flung her around, barely checking to see she hit the bed where he'd been laid up, before he made a break for the door.

Some kind of overhead alarm screeched in his ears as he ran barefoot down a shiny hallway. Men and women in black suits sprang out of his way, some calling after him.

Bucky took a right, going on pure instinct, slammed down another hallway, and then through a metal door helpfully labeled 'Exit'.

He was greeted with bright sunshine, and warm air scented with salt and gardenias. The lawn under his feet was soft and green. The trees flush with early summer leaves. He ran up a slight hill and turned to get his bearings.

Bucky's jaw dropped. There, off in the distance was the Hollywood sign, bigger than what he'd imagined as a kid. And below that, between brown rolling hills lay a valley with...

He'd seen New York from up high, the one time he'd gone on the Empire State building. It had nothing on the sprawling metropolis below him with its boxy skyscrapers and ribbon-like roads choked with gleaming-were those automobiles?

What in the world...?

"Stand down, Captain Barnes," a voice behind Bucky called.

He whipped around to see a black man with an eye patch stride up to him, flanked by several other men and women in dark suits.

"What-" Bucky's words failed him. "What's going on?"

The black man came to a stop a prudent six feet away. "We were hoping to break it to you, gently. You've been asleep for a long time."

A creeping sensation of dread came over him. "What do you mean by long?"

The man's mouth tightened, looking sad. "For just over seventy years."

Everyone was staring at him, probably waiting his reaction. Bucky took another long look at the strange vista out in front of him, his mind screeched to a halt.

The man stepped closer.

"Are you okay, Captain?"

_Captain. _

"Yeah. It's just-" Bucky swallowed, the pain as fresh as when he'd found Steve's body. "I'm not the Captain."

* * *

**O O O O**

* * *

70 years.

7 decades.

3 generations.

Plenty of time for facts to become legend. For legend to become myth. For government sanitized propaganda on America's super soldier to do its dirty work. There were comic books - _actual_ comic books of Captain America's adventures - where Steve hadn't started as a USO clown (Steve's words, not Bucky's) and that a man called Captain America had led his forces at the front, had actually punched out Hitler.

And that Captain America was him.

Seventy years was also plenty of time for classified documents to be unsealed. The problem was that no one really bothered to look behind the legend. As far as the public concerned, Captain America had died not saving his best friend in the alps, but taking a plane down in the arctic. Sparing most of the world from destruction.

Most of it.

Bucky spent a lot of time in the gym they'd built for him. Where everything was made of leather and wood, and hardly any of the new "plastic" that seemed to dominate most modern building materials. He pounded the hell out of punching bags because it was better than looking at the alien Los Angeles skyline, and think of the radioactive ruin that had become of New York.

They'd showed him the videos the third day, after Bucky wised up and realized his Shield handlers weren't talking about whatever became of the two missing HYDRA mini aero-planes.

History didn't blame him, they'd said. Thanks to his warning, army forces had been able to down the plane headed for D.C. He'd saved the president. Parts of outer New York had even been rebuilt - at least, the parts that hadn't been scoured by fallout. But that wasn't good enough. Bucky blamed himself plenty.

His nightmares weren't filled with needles anymore. They were filled with visions of his neighborhood. Friends and family and Steve as he'd been, young and skinny, looking up to a clear blue Brooklyn sky in time to see the first bomb drop.

He was smacking around a punching bag, grimacing and throwing in a few good knee-shots because what the hell he always liked to fight dirty, when he heard the gym door squeak open behind him.

"Something I can help you with?" he asked, not bothering to turn around. He'd been half-expecting visitors of some sort - something had gotten the Shield base buzzing over the last forty-eight hours, though no one said a word why. It was hard to pry secrets out of spies, but Bucky knew battle-front worry when he saw it. Something was up and he'd been expecting either Fury or one of his head shrinks to make their move any day now. Either to drag him out and haul him off to the white-walls, or try to make a hero out of him. He wasn't sure which one he wanted.

"Actually, something you can help the world with," came a voice, different from Fury's but somehow vaguely familiar.

Bucky turned around. A man in a suit stood in his gym. He was well cut, dark hair and eyes, with a fancy stitching to his clothes that Bucky assumed had to be in the modern style. It made him look a little like a dandy.

The man scanned Bucky up and down, tilting odd red-tinted sunglasses off the tip of his nose. There was none of the fawning and offers to shake his hand that Bucky hated - it put this new man apart from the rest immediately. He wasn't awed by Bucky. He looked amused by him.

"And you are?" Bucky asked.

The man's eyes snapped back to his own. "Tony Stark. I suppose you've heard of me by now?"

"Can't say that I have."

Tony Stark clucked his tongue. "My, my, what are they teaching defrosted World War Two veterans these days?"

_Their version of history, to start_. Bucky thought. He'd picked up on that quickly, too. "A Stark, huh? Related to Howard Stark?"

"He was my father."

Yeah. Bucky could see that in his hoity-toity baring. "And now you're, what? Fury's lackey?"

Stark snorted. "Please, Fury couldn't afford me. He doesn't know I'm here, actually." There was a wooden table nearby, set up for equipment and free-weights. Stark hopped easily on it.

Fury didn't strike Bucky as the type to not know what went on in his building. "That so?"

"What can I say, I'm a fan of how you used to punch out Hitler."

Bucky rolled his eyes and turned away, untapeing his hands. He was already tired of correcting that stupid rumor. What had been a joke seventy years ago was as good as fact now.

Stark spoke again, "The thing is, you and I have something in common, Captain."

Captain. That was one misconception Bucky couldn't correct. Phillips had been as good as his word - the promotion, at least, had been real.

Bucky turned back to stare at Stark. Despite his fancy duds, there was tension in his frame. Maybe he knew something about what was going on in the rest of HQ. "I'll bite. What do I got in common with the son of a millionaire?"

"Billionaire," Stark said as if it mattered. "I made my first billion by the time I was twenty-two. But what we have in common is this: We were both rejected as Avengers, but they need us anyway. Me, because I have," he lifted his fingers in air quotes, "'A textbook narcissistic personality' and you because you keep insisting you're not Captain America."

"That's because I'm not." And what the heck was an Avenger? Irritated, Bucky reached to unhook the punching bag from the overhead catch. Maybe if he cleaned up after himself the man would get the hint that he was ready to leave.

"No, you're the guy who took up the shield and finished the job - do you always do that one-handed?"

Bucky froze, the easily two-hundred pound bag unhooked and swinging free in his right hand. Then he shrugged, setting it down. He'd been making sure not to overexert himself in front of any Shield-folk, but it had been awhile since his time in the HYDRA-base, and he spent most of it afterwards around Steve. Sometimes he honestly forgot what normal people were capable of.

Stark had lowered his sunglasses again, his gaze more speculative in a way Bucky didn't like.

"Have you ever been to New York, Mr. Stark?" Bucky asked.

"Can't say that I have. HYDRA-radiation isn't good for my complexion."

Bucky grimaced. "Captain America - the real man everyone fawns over nowadays - he was my best friend, and I guarantee he would have never allowed that to happen."

"Doubtful. Besides, you lost one city, Barnes. You saved the rest of the country. There's what they call acceptable losses. I should know. I used to be in the weapons manufacturing business."

"What happened? Grew a heart?"

Stark's smile was sharp. "Lost one."

There was a story behind that, Bucky could tell. But he shrugged and hefted the bag onto one shoulder, reaching down to grab a second one. Sometimes they went a little soft if he pounded on it for hours. He dumped them along the wall along with the others. When he turned back, Stark was still there, playing around with some fancy looking screen in his palm as they did nowadays.

"You're pretty spry for an old guy," Stark said, still tapping on the screen. "What's your secret?"

"An apple a day," Bucky snapped. It was a refreshing to finally come across a man who wasn't falling all over himself to say what an honor it was to meet Captain America, but he was in the mood for only so much poking. "What exactly do you want from me, Stark?"

"One question: Do you recognize this?" Stark flicked his fingers over the screen, and an image of light and dust shimmered into reality in front of him. Bucky had a split second of pure marveling - none of the Shield folk had showed him tech like this, almost as if they expected him to faint dead over anything new - and the next for his heart to harden.

"HYDRA's cosmic cube," he said, voice low.

Stark nodded and poked the light-picture, making it rotate on its access. Bucky had grown to hate the thing, but the electric blue glow was beautiful.

"Howard searched for your plane for a good ten years after it went down. In the end, he recovered this and brought it back to the states."

Bucky could read between the lines. Howard Stark had stopped his search - or grown uninterested - after finding the cube. That was fine. He didn't know Howard well, and who in their right mind would believe there would be anything to recover after a decade, anyway?

"They call it the tesseract now," Stark continued. "Shield's had their grabby hands all over it since the fifties, though they hadn't started their 'research' until nine months ago or so."

Sometimes it felt like Bucky was in the ice, still. Like a piece of his heart never fully unthawed. He felt it now - cold all through. "Let me guess. 'Research', like trying to recreate HYDRA weapons?"

Stark looked honestly pleased. "Oh good, a cynic. I approve. I was half-afraid you were going to be all 'Aw shucks, Beaver Cleaver."

Bucky only got about half of that, but he picked up enough from context clues. "I was in war, pal, and I grew up in an orphanage before that. I get how the world works."

"Can't blame me for thinking it though, with a name like Bucky."

Back to poking again. But poking, Bucky could handle. "You call me James, I'll start calling you-what, Antonio?"

"Anthony, actually. And noted." He gave a theatrical shudder and flicked the screen again. The cosmic cube was replaced by the image of a sharp-faced man with lank long dark hair. "Two days ago, it was stolen by this guy. Loki, like the Norse god. Actually, exactly like the Norse god..."

And he went on to explain... quite a few things Bucky had half-heard passing in Shield corridors, but which no one would explain if he asked a direct question: Norse gods who were actually aliens. Space travel. A small town in New Mexico obliterated in an intergalactic pissing match.

Bucky took it all in with the vague feeling he should have been asking a lot more questions from his Shield handlers over the last couple weeks. It was all... very strange. But then again that had been his life since he woke up from the ice. Before, even. Back when his formally shrimpy best friend had rescued him out of hell and battled a red-faced demon with no nose.

When Stark was done speaking, Bucky let out a long breath and looked down at his shoes. There was another angle to this. Had to be. "You know so much. Why do you need me?"

"I don't," Stark said with bluntness Bucky could appreciate. "In fact, I didn't know you were alive until I hacked Shield's AI." Tony Stark's grin was a bearing of teeth. "You're awake, but they're still keeping you under ice, Captain."

"Maybe I like it that way." But when Stark gave him a direct look Bucky shook his head and sighed, glancing around the gym. The 'period specific authentic' decorations he wasn't sure was subtly insulting or just sad. Coming down here, he felt like the relic he was.

Stark's next words were a quiet challenge. "Do you?"

_No._

Bucky raised his chin and looked at Stark, really looked at him. Why would a rich man waste his time on a guy like him? The answer came quickly. "You're doing this to tweak Fury's nose. Because he wouldn't let you in on-" What had Stark called it? "-that Avengers thing."

"Maybe I don't think he's using all his resources. Your boss is a spy, Captain. _The_ spy. And he's hiding something. If he can hide a man, what else can he hide?"

"Hell, he's not my boss." He'd signed his enlistment papers with the Army, but hadn't heard a peep from them. Besides, the war was long over. His service was up.

"You said yourself you don't think their researching is for pure purposes," Stark said.

"They're going to-" What was the modern term? "-_weaponize_ the cube."

"Looks like it," Stark agreed. "My company is kind of the biggest name in green energy, yet Shield have arguably the most powerful source of free energy in the world and they haven't approached me? Not Kosher."

"And I'm supposed to believe you don't want it for yourself?" Bucky asked.

There was that odd smile again. "Stark Industries is out of the weapon's business, Captain."

He had no way to trust that, but Bucky figured he could use an ally until push came to shove. If half of what Stark said was true... He hesitated for another moment, but then nodded. "I'm coming on one condition."

"What's that?"

Bucky thought of the HYDRA bases, the slide of the needle entering his vein while he was strapped down to a table and screaming, a flash of knowing blue eyes as the HYDRA blast hit Steve's shield. "When we find the cube, we drop it back in the ocean where it belongs."

Tony Stark hopped down from the table. "Deal." He held out his hand.

Bucky shook it.

* * *

_To be continued..._


	2. Chapter 2

Bucky stopped by his quarters for a quick change into some of the civi clothing Shield had procured for him. The room was bigger than the pup-tent he'd had in the war, but was still four bland walls without windows or decorations. If any pictures of the Commandos had survived the last seventy years, he hadn't been given them. His Ma was long gone, and anything he'd left behind had been blasted with the rest of New York.

Glancing at the closed door, he lifted his mattress, grabbed a rolled package, then stuck it under his arm.

The hallways at Shield's Los Angeles HQ were nearly deserted - even the admin assistant usually present at the sign in/out desk was absent. He filled out the form anyway, signing it with a flourish. No one stopped him as he strode across the attached airfield and boarded Stark's sleek aircraft.

He supposed he should have felt nervous about being confined in another areo-plane (Stark called it a Quinjet - whatever that meant) though the inside was so glitzy it hardly was the same beast as the one Bucky had taken down into the ice. Then again, it seemed everything in the future sparkled, shone, or beeped.

Stark, acting as the pilot, didn't speak to Bucky until after the smooth takeoff. "I've intercepted Shield's Helicarrier communications." His tone was casual, as if those words made sense. Maybe they did, in this time. "They've just sent two of their top agents to Berlin. One guess as to why."

Bucky nodded, though inside he swore. Germany. Swell. Why was it always Germany?

"I can get us there in four hours," Stark continued, "A little faster if I took the suit, but it's not like there's a seat onboard for you."

Bucky tore his gaze from the array of glittering buttons on the Quinjet's dashboard to glance at Stark's fancy duds. "You got jetpacks in that thing?"

The other man looked honestly taken aback. "Fury really didn't tell you? I'm offended on behalf of the country. C'mere." He pushed a few buttons and tapped on a virtual typewriter thing that appeared out of thin air. He then rose from his seat and gestured Bucky to the back.

Stark pressed his hand against a dark piece of glass, something beeped (of course), then the wall panel slid up to reveal -

"Iron Man," Stark said, rocking back from heel to toe and back again. A grin at the edge of his expression.

Bucky blinked and raised his hand to touch the arm of the red and gold human-shaped machine-no, armor? Suit. He stopped just short, blinked again, then took in the suit's dimensions. Then Stark's. "Huh. You made yourself taller."

"I made myself _awesome_," Stark squawked. "There's only so much room for flight stabilizers in the boots. The height was a happy side effect."

"Sure." Tentatively, Bucky did touch it, and was surprised by the lightness of the metal, the dexterity of the fingers. "It sure is something," he breathed without meaning to.

"I know, right?" Stark was grinning openly and looking up at the suit with the fond amusement of a proud papa. This was his pride and joy.

"Bulletproof?" Bucky asked.

Stark snorted. "_Please_."

Bucky let his fingers trail off the armor, considering. "We don't exactly know why this Loki fellow wants the cosmic cube. He might be trying to create more HYDRA energy weapons."

"Your shield was able to stand up against those blasts, right?" Stark asked, picking up where he was going.

_Steve's shield_, Bucky thought, but nodded anyway.

"Hmm. Vibranium. Great stuff. Too bad it can only be artificially produced in small amounts." Stark tapped his chest - it seemed to be a nervous tick of some sort - his eyes unfocused in thought.

"I haven't seen the shield since I woke up." Bucky had asked about it twice, and both times was shut down by his handler of the day. Truthfully, it had been a little bit of a relief, a little bit of a pain not to have it again - echoing the same ripping feeling in his chest he got every time he thought of Steve. Maybe Bucky didn't deserve to hold Steve's shield again. "Well," Bucky said with a glance to the package he'd brought from his room, "I'll have your back."

"Probably won't need it," Stark said with cool arrogance. "But just in case, try not to shoot me, old man."

Bucky glanced again at the armor. "I don't know. Do you think you could make your suit redder and more flashy? My eyes ain't what they used to be."

That was a lie. His eyes and reflexes were as good as they ever were. Bucky just wasn't certain if what was inside was worth a damn.

* * *

Modern day Berlin looked nothing like the city Bucky had known. But that was becoming an old hat by now. He barely registered the shimmering lights, the clean streets, and the tall arching skyscrapers which now housed prosperous and peaceful people.

Another aircraft hovered in place before a plaza. Shield's aircraft. As Stark's jet approached, a bolt of blue energy shot from the ground and struck the right wing of the Shield's jet. The other listed to the side, smoke pouring thickly. Another bolt carved the middle like an overripe fruit, spitting fire and sparks.

"Get ready, we're coming in fast!" Stark called, punching some buttons to swing the his Quinjet around.

Bucky nodded, grabbed up his rolled package, and headed for the back.

Stark toggled a switch above his head. Loud - well, it might have been music, but it didn't sound like it - poured out.

"What's that?" Bucky yelled.

The grin Stark sent his way was almost manic with pre-battle adrenaline. "Letting them know help is on the way. It'll take me a minute to suit up."

Bucky felt his own lips stretch in an answering grin. His heart picked up speed, and the grip around the package he'd taken from his room was tight. Probably nerves. He was a little out of practice. "I'll keep him busy, but don't take too long dolling yourself up."

Stark's answer was lost in a whoosh of wind as the back ramp opened. Buckyr took a second to gauge the distance - thirty feet above the rooftop. The landing would sting, but he'd make it - before he took a breath and leapt.

He landed in a roll and came up running to the edge of the roof. Above, the engines whined as Stark maneuvered the Quinjet out of reach of ground fire. The other jet was nowhere to be seen, but one of the nearby buildings was on fire. Not good.

Bucky unrolled the package to reveal a gleaming sniper's rifle. The first new thing in this odd time and place he'd gave a damn about. He'd fallen in love with the rifle the moment he'd held it.

When he'd first woken, Shield leadership had seemed to have an idea of putting him back out into the field. His first few days had been taken up in a battery of tests, medical and otherwise, to gauge his fitness.

They'd let a junior agent take him to the firing range. Bucky's aim was true as always, and it was made even easier by the smooth pull of the rifle, the buttery soft metal, the deadly beauty of machine. But de'd sussed out Shield's intensions by then and intentionally missed every target. When the junior agent had lost interest and turned away, distracted, Bucky had disassembled the rifle and stuck the pieces away in his clothing. Sloppy of them not to notice, but the joke about 'being good enough for government work' was even older than he was.

Crouching on the roof's edge, Bucky set the rifle to his shoulder and peered down.

Even if his vision wasn't already very good, he didn't need the scope to locate his target. The man in the plaza below was wearing a flowing green cape, and honest-to-Norse-God horns. He was also fighting hand to hand with a... young woman?

Bucky inhaled in surprise as the lady vaulted, catlike, to Loki's shoulders, wrapping one strong calf around his neck, and... Wow. What a way for a fella to die.

But Loki merely swept his scepter up and around, knocking her off. She somehow landed in a crouch on the cobblestones, and had to spring to the side to avoid a blue energy bolt.

Bucky took careful aim and fired.

The scepter snapped around again, deflecting the bullet midair. Loki stopped and looked up, right at Bucky. And even though there was at least 100 yards of distance between them, Bucky clearly heard his smug tone. "The Soldier."

There was only one way to answer that. Bucky fired another round, aiming for Loki's smirk.

Again, Loki deflected it, but this time the red-headed lady had regained her footing. She came at the Norse god again, with a kick that would have knocked any mortal man on his ass. It made Loki snarl and point his scepter at her.

Bucky aimed for the blue glow at the scepter's end. It knocked Loki's shot wild.

The earpiece he'd completely forgotten about suddenly crackled into life, startling Bucky almost into his own wild shot.

"Agent Romanova," Tony said as a red and gold blur shot into the plaza. "Miss me?"

Iron Man landed with his palms already out. Twin white blasts of energy struck Loki, knocking him, skidding, into the museum steps. At least four other weapons extended out from Iron Man's metal shoulders and pointed at the god.

"Hands up, reindeer games."

* * *

With the prisoner secure, they took Stark's Quinjet, seeing as Shield's plane had gone down in flames. The Shield pilot, a particularly bland looking man, had escaped the wreckage with not a hair out of place, and acted as Stark's copilot on the return trip.

Bucky and Miss Romanova secured their prisoner (Bucky knew a couple good knots, but he was a little impressed by her depth of knowledge). She had a scrape on her right cheek from hitting concrete, but gave Bucky a cold look when he offered to help her patch it up. He just didn't get pretty dames these days.

"What is he doing here?" Romanova asked, turning instead to Stark.

"I'm planning the best wedding ever," Stark replied glibly. "And he gives me something old and borrowed." He turned to his co-pilot. "Got something blue for me, Agent?"

"Another old-timer joke, Stark?" Bucky asked. "That's a bit rich for someone with gray in their Van Dyke."

"A: It's not a Van Dyke, it's a kickin' goatee. Ask Rolling Stone, they dedicated three paragraphs to it last year. B: Who out of us here can actually remember the roaring twenties, again? Loki doesn't count. Being a Norse god is cheating."

"Explain exactly how immortality cheating?" Loki asked.

"Shut your yap," Bucky snapped at Loki, settling across the aisle from him with the rifle in his lap. Loki wasn't smiling, exactly but he dearly looked like he wanted to. The man was too calm, too... willing to stay put. He'd come along too easily for Bucky's taste, too.

Romanova seemed to have the same opinion. Or at least, Bucky noted how she kept herself between Loki and his strange scepter, which was stored in the front.

An uneasy silence fell in the Quinjet - it raised the hair on the back of Bucky's neck, though he wasn't sure why. The sudden tension felt... unnatural. Irritating.

Luckily, it wasn't long before Stark announced they were coming in on the helicarrier.

"What in this green Earth?" Bucky said as the Quinjet broke through pre-dawn cloud cover and the carrier came into full view. At first he thought it had to be an optical illusion. Something that big had no business hanging in the air.

"Really, Cap?" Stark turned to Romanova. "Did you guys show him nothing cool about the future? No wonder he voluntarily spent all day in your basement."

The bland co-pilot spoke up for the first time. "Don't listen to him. The helicarrier is a flashy pain in the ass. The energy consumption alone per-hour makes my head spin. We have an almost constant supply of fuel-tankers-"

"If only Shield had access to a company developing palladium-ionization arcing technology," Stark snapped. "Oh wait."

His voice had taken on a more caustic edge than when he'd been poking at Bucky, but that was fine. Bucky was feeling a bit annoyed as well.

"Shield's been keeping me in swaddling clothes the last few weeks," Bucky said.

Romanova turned to him. She had quite the direct stare. "If you've been benched, it's been by your own choice."

"Have we met before?" Bucky demanded. "Because I never forget a pretty face, and you keep actin' like you know me."

Her expression darkened to a dangerous degree. Every warning bell Bucky owned rang loud and clear.

His reply was thankfully sidelined by a sudden dip of the Quinjet as it came in to land. Bucky's irritation lessened once he got out of the stifling aircraft. Loki and his strange scepter were taken away into another direction.

Bucky and Stark were summarily ordered to Fury's office to get chewed out. But the fact was the two of them had more or less saved Shield members from getting their asses handed to them on international soil. Fury knew it, Bucky knew it, and Tony had no problem gleefully pointing it out a total of three times in five minutes.

"I did sign out of HQ," Bucky said with this blandest face on. "Crossed my T's and dotted my I's."

Fury whipped around to him, more than willing to vent on a new target. "This is the first time you've shown interest in the new world, Barnes. I am not appreciating how you've chosen to stretch your wings."

"You mean, who he's chosen it with?" Tony asked. "Just say it, Fury. You think I'm going to show him all the great things about this century, and you're right."

Bucky kept himself at loose parade rest, choosing not to answer directly. "Seems to me I have unfinished business with the cosmic cube."

He didn't think he imagined the glint that came into Fury's eye. "That's not a good enough answer, Captain Barnes. We got Loki, but he doesn't have the cube. I do not have the time for half measures. Are you in, or are you out?"

Bucky caught Stark looking at him, but couldn't read his expression. "Working for you? For Shield? Nah. Captain America was about more than one organization, director."

"Oh, you're Captain America all of a sudden?" Fury leaned forward over his desk. "Because you've been spending the last few weeks telling me you're not."

Bucky didn't have an answer. Only lifted his chin, the familiar ache of Steve's loss throbbing in his chest.

"Captain America worked for the army," Fury pressed.

"He served the war effort. Steve didn't do what he did because he was ordered to, or because some army brass told him it was right. He was trying to make a difference. He was-" Bucky swallowed and looked away. "He was trying to win the war, save the world."

To his surprise, it was Stark who spoke next. His tone was pithy, but his gaze didn't leave Bucky. "That was him. What are you going to do?"

Fury leaned forward on his desk. "There was an idea, Barnes. A simple idea to gather together a group of extraordinary people-"

The Avengers. But before Bucky interrupt the man, tell him he knew where this was going, there was a rumble of thunder and a crash of lightning outside the helicarrier, so close Bucky felt the floor shivering under his shoes.

Bucky glanced at Stark. "Say, wasn't Loki's brother-"

He was interrupted by claxons going off through the carrier.

Looked like the God of Thunder had decided to show.

* * *

One slightly odd (and violent) alien encounter later, Fury had actually talked the second Norse god of the day into his conference room for a little chat. Even now Bucky wasn't sure he trusted the director, but he did admire the balls of him.

For lack of anything else to do, he followed Stark into Shield's state of the art lab (which kid of looked more like a space ship than even the aircraft had) and met Dr. Bruce Banner, who seemed to be the quiet, lonely type.

He wondered why some of the agents who were obliquely standing guard seemed so nervous.

Either way, Stark and Banner soon lapsed into science-babble, and frankly, the only reason Bucky had made it through 12th grade was by copying off Steve. He knew when he was over his head.

He stood and stretched. "Well kids, it's been fun, but I'm going to have a peek at this popsicle stand."

Bucky was treated by two identically annoyed looks by full grown men, both with salt in their hair, and both of whom could have been his grandkid. And he used to think his life was strange when he and the Commandos were chasing around the Red Skull.

"Whatever." Stark said, pulling himself away from a glowing screen of numbers. Then added in a snide, "Have fun, dear."

"Don't work too hard, Junebug," Bucky called back as the door slid shut.

* * *

By the time Bucky turned the second corridor, ducked into a shadowed doorway, and let the trailing shield agent pass him by, he was certain there was something strange about Doctor Banner. He'd expected three agents to follow him, just like it had been in HQ. Now he was down to one, and Bucky hadn't imagined the extra security stationed around the lab.

He hadn't been sure what he was looking for in the helicarrier, exactly. A feeling of anticipation was itching under his skin - the same when he and Steve used to go out looking for trouble in Brooklyn, or later, spying his target through a sharp-shooter's scope.

He passed through one hallway, then another, keeping an eye out for a closet or a barracks. He'd have much less chance of being spotted if he could snag an extra Shield agent uniform.

One door was locked, but they sure didn't make locks like they used too. Especially when he elbowed the little glass panel beside the frame. It shattered and he pushed through.

The room beyond was shadowed. Storage, with boxes on either side. Maybe he could scrounge a uniform-

Bucky's breath stopped in his throat. There, in the half-light, was Captain America's round shield and blue-leather uniform, both mounted against the far war as if waiting to be unhooked and used.

He took a step closer, then another one. The uniform wasn't the same, and the shield had been given a fresh coat of paint, it's colors glowing even in the dull light.

Did Fury guess Bucky would come to the helicarrier? Did he somehow know what would happen? No, that was impossible. But it was clear he had planned for the eventuality.

Without thinking about, Bucky removed the shield off the wall and fit his arm under the straps, tightening them. The weight felt just as he remembered, light but solid. Secure. His back straightened as both something familiar and old settled into place.

They'd made adjustments to Captain America's uniform, too. Newer materials, a sleek, less spangled design. It loomed above Bucky, and if he unfocused his gaze a little he could almost imagine...

"The future sure is something, Steve," he muttered, his free hand tracing the rim of the shield. His voice echoed back at him in the storage room. Closing his eyes, Bucky took a breath. "I'm so... so damn sorry I didn't save New York. I know you woulda-Steve, there isn't a day, an hour, that goes by where I don't think about you, or wish..." _Wish I had fallen off that train instead._

He opened his eyes. The uniform loomed over him, empty.

Bucky's throat felt thick. He turned away. No use talking to ghosts. Steve was seventy years gone.

Something else caught his eye. The wall to the side of the uniform on display was odd. Rivets where no rivets should be, unless... was that covering a door hinge?

The edge of the shield was true as it always had been, and made an excellent pry-bar. Wrenching the hidden door open, Bucky found himself standing before rows and rows of crates. The sinking feeling in his gut was proved right when he opened the first crate and lifted one of the future's version's of a HYDRA-weapon within.

* * *

The blood obscured the dippy smiling face on the Captain America card - a generic man who could have been Steve or Bucky, or neither of him. The face had never mattered. Only the symbol.

Bucky kept that firmly in mind as he pulled on the red, white, and blue uniform. It fit. Hell, it was probably made to his exact measurements.

Stark was busy welding a quick fix into his Iron Man helmet as Bucky walked in. Stark said he had more suits at his tower, but he needed this armor to get him there first.

"So you're Captaining it up, then?" Tony asked without looking from his weld.

Bucky lifted a shoulder in a shrug, holding the shield. Through the helicarrier's windows, he could see the Los Angeles skyline come into view. It wasn't New York, not with the brown hills ringing the valley and the glimmer of the Pacific beyond, but he'd be damned if they lost another city on his watch. "Whatever happens down there, I have the feeling people are going to need Captain America." He paused, looking down at the vista of glimmering skyscrapers, the snake-like freeways. "Maybe I do too."

* * *

Had Bucky actually done any of the reading Shield had given him over the last few weeks, he would have closed the chitauri portal in the Los Angeles sky sooner. Instead of worrying about something called "Nuclear fallout", he waited, mentally counting down the seconds, giving Stark every moment he could.

When his mental alarm expired, and he counted fifteen Mississippi past that, Bucky called it. "Widow, close the portal."

The dazzling blue ray cut off, the gaping hole in the pale blue Los Angeles sky began to collapse in on itself... and a human-sized object fell out.

Bucky whooped, turning to slam one hand against Thor's gauntleted shoulder.

Thor grinned back at him - a grin that fell a moment later. "He's not slowing."

Then the Hulk leapt into action, and when a plainly woozy Tony Stark asked what had happened. Bucky only had one answer. "We won, kid. We did it."

Winning. Huh. He could get used to that.

* * *

After Loki, Bucky shook hands with Tony and the others, then took a taxi to the nearest train station and boarded the first thing that went out of town.

He didn't have a destination in mind other than _away_. But Brooklyn had always been his home, the only place he'd ever thought he would live when he got back from war.

He got as close as he could - the port of Cape Liberty, New Jersey, before physical government roadblocks stopped him. Standing on the strut of an abandoned radio tower, Bucky peered over the ruin of New York and tried to pick out landmarks he used to know. And if he wept a little, well, no one was around to see it.

At night, the remains of the city glowed an electric HYDRA blue.

Two weeks later found him knocking on the front door to Stark's Malibu mansion. Tony acted as if Bucky's arrival was expected, and put Bucky up in the last guest bedroom. Black Widow and Bruce were already there, set-up in their own rooms.

"You sure this is alright?" he asked, snugging his duffle up higher on his shoulder. He hate to ask for charity, but he had no where else to go.

"I have a lot of rooms, Bucky. That's why they call it a mansion."

That was an exaggeration on Tony's part - it was a mansion built for one, apparently - , but the house was big enough, even though Bucky suspected he'd shoved Pepper out of her room.

He also wasn't sure when they stopped becoming Barnes and Stark, and had become Bucky and Tony, either. Bruce had always been Bruce, and as for Romanova - well. She was always Miss Romanova, until the day they both met up in the boxing ring Tony kept downstairs. She knocked him for a loop hard enough to make him drop propriety.

Truth was, Bucky was half in love with her by the end of it. He would have tried something, but Clint Barton moved in a week later with dark rings under his eyes that no one commented on. He roomed with Natasha, and that was that. Bucky wasn't going to move in on someone else's girl.

Then the thing with Seattle happened, and the Avengers were needed again. A hostage situation with a militant group who had gotten their mitts on Chitauri guns and thought that meant they could hold an entire community bank hostage.

Then, in Miami, they were introduced to a new pain in the neck called Doombots.

If this was going to be a regular thing, Bucky decided their team needed training. The private beach cove below the cliffside mansion was great for a long run, and the sand was soft for falls when sparring. People got so upset over a little black eye nowadays.

Clint and Natasha were already in shape, but Bucky needed all the skill he'd picked up as a Sergeant to brave Bruce's temper whenever he dragged him out of the lab. Tony tried to beg him off, citing a bad heart, but Bucky had been pressing sickly friends into going outside decades before Tony was even born. It took two yelling matches, but Bucky was declared a winner when Tony showed up the third day for a team beach run.

Then Tony got it in his head to install holographic projectors into the face of the beach cliff. Suddenly, the Avengers had an obstacle course and mutable holographic enemies that _learned_ as they went.

It was swell-no, what was the modern phrase - a _sweet_ setup, except for the first training after Thor returned from Asgard. He brought the hammer down once to take out a mob of holographic zombies, and they'd had to pick out melted glass out of the sand for weeks.

But they learned. They adapted. The haunted look dimmed from Clint's eyes, Tony and Bruce came out of their scientist hidey-holes for dinner more often than not, Natasha smiled, Thor boomed, and Bucky voluntarily learned how to use a tablet, which was a fancy word for a computer.

Months passed. Then a year. Then one day while hunting for breakfast Bucky stopped at the digital calendar displayed on the refrigerator door, counted the days, and realized he'd been carrying the shield longer than Steve had, back in their day. Huh.

And just like that, suddenly, his appetite was gone.

He headed to the elevator feeling, odd. A little hollowed out. Maybe he should head down to the park, see if any of his kids were running around. On his off time, Bucky was an assistant coach for the local co-ed Little League. Clint liked to tease him over Captain America being only an assistant, but Bucky was a big believer in getting kids into sports and out of trouble. Besides, he couldn't be counted on for games when he could be pulled away anytime for Avenger's business-

"Sir," J.A.R.V.I.S. broke in, like he was a mind-reader. "I'm afraid there has been a situation. This was just simultaneously broadcasted on all major television channels all throughout the United States."

One of the video panels on the elevator promptly lit up, showing a grainy image of what looked like a woman tied to a chair. A shaky camera zoomed in, focused, and abruptly Bucky was staring at Pepper, gagged. She'd been crying and mascara ran dark tears down her face. But now her eyes were clear and hard, glaring back at the camera, or whoever was behind it.

There was no sound. Underneath was only a simple text message.

MR. STARK: 50 MILLION DEPOSITED INTO SWEDISH NATIONAL BANK, ACCOUNT #974024519 BY 12PM PST.

The image of Pepper lasted for a count of ten seconds, then resolved into static.

Bucky swore and smacked the stop button on the elevator, then changed his mind and hit the one for Tony's basement workshop two levels down. "Can you stop him?" he asked J.A.R.V.I.S., knowing he didn't have a chance if Tony was already in there.

"I'm afraid stopping Mr. Stark would violate existing protocols," J.A.R.V.I.S. said.

"He's going to get himself killed! How's that for your protocol?" Bucky hit the workshop button again, but that didn't make elevators go faster, even in his day.

There was a slight pause. "I can delay the button-up procedure by an incremental degree," J.A.R.V.I.S. said. "Please hurry."

The elevator dinged open. Bucky sprinted out, turned a corner, and leapt a lab table just as the Iron Man helmet slammed closed over Tony's face.

Bucky didn't think, he grabbed the armor plated arm and thwapped Iron Man, hard, over the head. "What do ya think you're doing, flyboy?"

"Not the time, Barnes." Tony's voice came out cold from Iron Man's voice modulators. He went to brush Bucky away, but Bucky had been waiting for that. He ducked and came up again to Iron Man's other side, putting himself in front of the exit.

Of course, Tony could just blast up through the ceiling and the living room above if he got a head of steam on him, but Bucky hoped it wouldn't come to that.

"Not without the team, you're not," Bucky said. "We've trained for hostage situations."

He could feel Tony's glare from behind the glowing eyes. "It's not any hostage situation. It's Pepper. Now get out of my way."

"Do you even know where she is?"

The faceplate came up, and although Tony's expression was thunderous, Bucky still considered it a win. "Hello, genius here. J.A.R.V.I.S. is running a back-trace through every satellite upload system and ISP. I'll know in fifteen minutes. Tops."

"Then what?"

"Take a guess," Tony snarled, stepping into Bucky's space.

A better man may have backed off, might have reasoned with Tony or been sympathetic. Bucky had been rough around the edges before that had been a phrase, and the loudest, brashest voice where being noticed for the wrong reasons meant getting a switch to the behind and sent to bed without food. He didn't give an inch and snarled back, "Sure is, and when they see you coming in this," he flicked the red and gold chest plate, "they're going to put a bullet right between her pretty eyes, then they'll nab you."

Tony shoved Bucky. Not enough to knock him down, but enough to back him a step. "It's Pepper!"

Bucky shoved him back. "We both know this ain't about ransom. This is part of their plan! So we need one, too."

Tony didn't answer for a moment, but a muscle above his right eye twitched. He'd always been bad about telegraphing his moves, instead depending on the suit to cover him. Iron Man wasn't meant for subtly. From the way he held himself now, Bucky gave it a fifty/fifty shot between Tony punching him and flying off, or straight flying off.

"He's right," said a soft voice. Bruce walked in from the right, his hands shoved in his pockets. J.A.R.V.I.S. must have called for backup. "Tony, you know he is."

Tony turned to him. "Hey, science bros, remember? You're supposed to be on my side." But he didn't sound nearly as angry as before. It was hard to be mad at Bruce.

Bruce gave a half smile. "Sorry, Tony."

Natasha melted from the shadows on the other side, Clint at her heels. "Pepper's best shot at getting out alive is if we attack this together."

"Aye," Thor said from behind them both, and until that moment Bucky would have bet money that the man couldn't enter a room quietly. "Pepper is one of our own, shield brother. We want the best for her as well."

Bucky nodded to the group, though he didn't take his eyes off Tony's face. "We have three hours until the deadline, and between now and then we're going to give them fifty million reasons to regret they ever _thought_ about going after her."

Tony briefly closed his eyes, and Bucky knew they'd won.

"When it comes time," Tony said reopening his eyes to stare straight at Bucky. "I'm killing the son of a bitch who took her. You're not stopping me, Cap."

"I won't," Bucky promised because being Captain America didn't mean he was a good man. That label had belonged to someone else, and it was hard to remember how disappointed Steve would be when his mind was filled with images of Pepper tied up with mascara tears down her cheeks. "I'll help."


	3. Chapter 3

"How in the hell," Tony growled as the results of JARVIS' location scan came through. The blinking light that represented Pepper's location flashed on a holo-display over the quinjet's cockpit, "can Pepper be in Las Vegas? Who kidnaps someone and brings them to Las Vegas?" But even as he spoke, he was pressing buttons on the array of quinjet controls. Apparently he didn't disbelieve the scan, he was just in disbelief.

The metal panels of the quinjet shuddered under their feet as it came around to the new heading.

Bucky watched Tony carefully and caught Natasha doing the same. Tony was "nuclear pissed" as Clint had said. But he hadn't gone AWOL and flown out the jet the moment JARVIS announced he'd located Ms. Potts. Bucky was counting it as a win.

It didn't mean Bucky wouldn't watch Tony like a hawk, though. Someone was preparing a trap, and they were willingly flying right into it.

"Better question: How did she get from downtown LA to Las Vegas in twenty minutes?" Clint piped up from where he was affixing combustible arrowheads to some shafts. They all had their pre-battle warm ups. Beyond, Bruce was meditating on a woven grass mat, and Thor stalked back and forth, swinging his hammer.

Normally, Bucky liked to play cards with Natasha. Last time they'd played a mean game of Go Fish. Emphasis on mean.

Tony tapped a few buttons angrily, like he was trying to jab some sense into them. "I don't know, but these readings are conclusive. Ten minutes before she disappeared, Pep was in her office, and put in an order to her PA for a salad or some other kind of rabbit food. Then she fell off the map."

Bucky glanced at the clock. They still had an hour until the kidnapper's deadline. They were going to be cutting it close. "I don't suppose Sulu's invented transporter technology yet?"

"It's Scotty, not Sulu. You're killin' me, Barnes," Clint said with a long suffering look on his face.

Bucky knew that - he'd said it to get a rise out of Tony, but the other man hadn't reacted at all.

"Could you be getting a false reading?" Natasha asked.

Tony considered that for a moment, then shook his head. "No, she's there. The trace works. I may or may not have put a tracker in her last pair of expensive shoes - don't look at me like that, it was for legitimate beta testing purposes."

"I never figured you for the jealous type," Bucky said.

"I'm not- she wanted a pedometer and-" He shook his head, visibly pulling himself back on track. That wasn't like him at all. Then again, Tony Stark in battle was somewhat of a different beast than the regular annoying Tony Stark. "It's her. Or at least, her shoes. And have you ever tried to separate Pep from her shoes? You'd get one of those high heels in your eye."

"But how was she transported that quickly?" Natasha asked.

"That's the 64,000 dollar question," Bruce piped in, from his meditation mat.

"Chump change," Tony said, turning back to his console and muttering to JARVIS.

But again, the Iron Man helmet remained untouched, by his side. Bucky was glad. He moved to the back of the jet, wondering the same thing. Twenty minutes over that space of land? He doubted the kidnappers had quinjets of their own. Well, hopefully they'd knock some heads, rescue the girl, and all find out together.

* * *

They didn't knock heads. They didn't even get the opportunity.

According to Tony's information, Pepper was being held on the top floor of a high-rise so new it hadn't been completely finished. Bucky ordered Clint and Natasha to start from the bottom floor and sweep their way up - Thor, Bucky, and Tony would strike at the same time from the top, disabling whoever was holding Pepper.

They found her tied to the same chair as in the video, slightly fuzzy and confused from whatever drugs they'd used to transport her. She was utterly alone.

Natasha and Clint's sweeps also came up empty. Natasha found Bucky at the top floor, his worry reflected in her eyes.

"They brought us here for a reason," Natasha said. "Holding one of our own is a convenient way to get us out of the city."

Bucky nodded. "You can fly the quinjet. Take Bruce, Clint and Thor, and haul ass back to headquarters."

She nodded once. "What about Iron Man?"

"Pepper's going to need a minute. I'll stay and keep an eye on them, and we'll have SHIELD send us another jet." Bucky turned to the others. "Hawkeye, Thor, Bruce, you're with Widow. Go."

They were a good team. They did as they were told, and Bucky watched the quinjet take off from the roof of the building with a sense of pride, then returned downstairs to Tony and Pepper.

Pepper was sitting hunched over with a blanket over her shoulders that Tony had scrounged somewhere. Despite that, she was remarkably composed - there was steel in her spine.

Tony was more of a wreck than she was, and was fluttering around with a kind of manic energy that wasn't good for anyone.

"They didn't say what they wanted," he overheard her saying as he came close. "Or who they were with."

"Pepper - Pep. It's okay," Tony babbled. "They won't hurt you again-They won't even touch you, I swear to God, Pep."

Pepper held up a hand to stop him, and Tony's mouth shut with an audible click.

Bucky had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from grinning.

"Can you describe them?" Bucky asked.

She started to shake her head, then sat straighter, pulling the blanket closer. She didn't look like she needed it, but she hadn't exactly rejected it, either. "They were speaking- I'm not sure - I think it was German? I was a little... drugged." She shook her head, confused, freckles standing out from pale cheeks.

German. Of course.

"There were four," she continued. "But all of them wore masks. The leader was the biggest - a blond guy. Huge."

"Great, so we're looking for Hans Gruber," Tony muttered, then glanced at Bucky. "That's a reference to-"

"Yeah, Die Hard," Bucky said, annoyed. "You and Clint made me watch it last winter, remember? Told me it was a Christmas movie."

Pepper shook her head again. She was blinking rapidly, clearly trying to fight off the effects of the drug. "There was something else - it sounded like they were using something like your suit."

Tony sucked in a half breath.

"What do you mean?" Bucky asked, turning back towards her.

"When the blond man grabbed me, it-_He_ was too strong. It sounded like he was using augmented servos, like your Iron Man armor." She shook her head again, shuddering for the first time, and Tony bent down to her level to gather her into his arms.

"Give us a sec, Cap," Tony said.

Bucky nodded and took himself to the other side of the room. Pepper was okay, that was the important part. But the reason behind the kidnapping was a mystery. And why had they gone to all this trouble to give up the ghost so easily?

Maybe... they had wanted the Avengers all in one place as a distraction for something else? It was a possibility, and the reason he'd sent the others back to the mansion, but something didn't feel right.

Walking to a window, Bucky rested his hands on the sill and looked out, frowning at the vista below: The hot Las Vegas sun and the artificial glimmer of casino pools. Back in his day, Las Vegas was a rough town. Over the last few decades, they'd tried to make it family friendly, but he didn't buy it.

A glint caught his eye. A lone figure stood on the roof of the next building over. Even from a distance, Bucky could see he was a big man, his feet spread apart for balance. But it was the machine that caught his eye - some type he couldn't recognize, but that sparkled dully in the sun off the man's left side.

On his other shoulder, the man hefted a rocket-propelled grenade launcher.

Bucky whipped back around. "Grenade!" he shouted, and rushed to Pepper - she was the one least protected out of them.

His enhanced speed made him just fast enough to make it to Pepper and knock her to the ground, the shield over them both. Pepper let out a surprised shriek as the rocket propelled grenade hit. Flames rolled overhead, and the walls shook from the force of impact.

Then the floor dropped out from under them.

Tony yelled "NO!", reaching for them both. They were too far away.

And for a second, Bucky was back on the train, reaching for Steve, seeing his wide blue eyes as Steve fell from him...

The floor collapsed with a squeal of twisting metal. A sickening, stomach lurching drop. Gripping Pepper, Bucky somehow was able to roll so he hit the ground first, his shield over their heads as shattered concrete rained down over them.

Slowly the shaking stopped. Bucky coughed, clearing dust from his lungs. Pepper wiggled off him - it might have been an interesting position, if she weren't Tony's girl and he weren't aching and sore.

He looked up. They'd fallen clean through two levels.

The repulsers in the Iron Man suit meant Tony had been able to hover. He hadn't fallen in with them. He made a controlled decent to their level. "Are you all right? Pep? Bucky?"

"Fine," Pepper coughed.

Bucky jerked his head back to the other building, now visible through a huge, gaping hole in the wall. "Gruber's that way," he growled. "Go."

He couldn't see Tony's face under Iron Man's mask, but he could imagine the snarl there. The desire for revenge. Sure enough, Tony lurched into motion and ran out the hole - the Iron Man suit clunking. He dropped out of view, and Bucky heard a mechanical whine as the repulsers activated and he gave chase.

"You okay, ma'am?" he asked, helping Pepper sit up.

She clutched her wrist to her. She might have broken it - he hadn't exactly been gentle when he'd knocked her down. She nodded, still coughing. "Yes, yes, I'm-" Then to his utter alarm, she broke into tears.

Bucky patted her on the shoulder, awkwardly.

"I'm fine," she kept insisting. "I'm fine," then lower, "I can't do this anymore."

He didn't know what to say, and Pepper shook her head, shaking and shuddering. By the time Iron Man came back, frustrated and empty handed, she'd once again pulled herself together like the trooper she was.

Bucky didn't mention what she'd said, and neither did she.

* * *

Life moved on. Soon there there were more calls to assemble, (Doombots again, really? Some villains had no imagination) and although Bucky kept an eye peeled for the assassin they'd nicknamed Hans Gruber there wasn't hide nor hair of him. No threats to Pepper, Tony, or any of the Avengers.

The assassin had disappeared like a ghost.

* * *

Spring blasted into summer in that sudden way that it tended to do in Southern California. One thing he missed about Brooklyn (other than everything) was that the seasons actually followed the calendar, instead of a half-attempt at winter before moving into summer with no spring in between.

"Hey, I got a question," Clint said one day while he and Bucky laid belly-first on a sandy knoll on the training beach, shooting at holographic targets. They were decent sparring partners - well matched. Bucky was a sharp-shooter in his own right, though Clint edged him out over one-hundred yards. Bucky usually one-upped him on hand-to-hand combat. Clint wasn't a slouch, but Bucky's slightly enhanced reflexes and strength gave him the upper hand.

Bucky ignored Clint, took aim with his rifle, and fired. A puff of wind came up and blew Bucky's shot wide.

Clint smirked. "Hey," he said again, "Isn't your birthday next week?"

"Nope." Bucky squeezed the trigger. This time his shot struck true.

"Bullshit. July 4th, right?"

Bucky ruthlessly pushed down the unpleasant squirm in his chest. "Wrong Captain America, pal," he said. "My birthday was in March."

"What? Why didn't you say anything?"

He shrugged and scooted down from the knoll to give Clint his chance at a shot. "I couldn't figure if I was twenty-eight or ninety-five." Some days he felt like both. "So what was the point?"

"I hear that. Don't tell anyone, but I'm celebrating my 30th. Again." Clint drew back his bow and fired. The wind played havoc with him, as well. To Bucky's satisfaction Clint's arrow went wide by the barest of margins.

Later, Bucky realized he should have sussed him out - Clint was a super secret agent. He didn't say anything without a purpose or a reason.

He wasn't looking forward to the day, anyhow. There were too many specials on TV leading up to it - all featuring the amalgam of the Captain America the government propaganda machine had put out after the war. The man that had a little bit of Steve and a little bit of Bucky, and yet was neither. Honestly, Bucky's schooldays were pretty bad, but he still worried for the state of the American school system.

So when the day came, he went out. Borrowed one of Tony's motorcycles (he called it a crotch rocket, and flying down the freeway it really did feel like a rocket) and went past the city, up the mountain pass and to the back roads of the grapevine until he came to a gated off reservoir. Some place where he could sit on a bank, open a beer, and talk to the empty air without coming off like a loon.

"Happy ninety-fifth, Stevie," he said, and took a sip.

* * *

He made sure to get home before most of the fireworks started. He didn't care what the head shrinks said - he didn't have shellshock, but the sound of blasts overhead made him twitchy, reminded him too much of the bad times during the war.

The mansion was unusually dark when he got there, which should have been his second clue. Bucky frowned as he walked into the living room and flicked on the lights. Did he hear breathing...?

"SURPRISE!"

Bucky easily leapt back ten feet, holding his motorcycle helmet in front of him like a shield.

There was a crowd of people in the living room, Bucky's team stood in front; Tony with a shit-eating grin, Natasha with a raised eyebrow. Bruce gave him a half-apologetic shrug and Thor raised what looked like a goblet of mead or ale. Beyond them were a crowd of people - Stark industry employees, some SHIELD agents he was friendly with, and adult coaches for the co-ed Little League team Bucky helped coach in his off hours.

Then he figured it out. The banner strung overhead that said, "Happy Late Birthday" helped.

Then a crowd of well-wishers surrounded him and it was either smile through grit teeth or punch someone. Maybe Clint. He had a punchable face.

Someone - he thought it was Natasha - pushed a clear shot of vodka in his hand. He downed it, knowing it would do nothing, but there was always the hope it would take the edge off.

"I told them this would be a great idea," Tony said later, throwing an arm around Bucky's shoulders. He was half-drunk, his dark eyes a little vague from alcohol, and his smile a touch too wide. "You were set to be all Captain Mopey because of your... Steve. We could all see it. And I said... I said, no." He leaned close, his breath tickling Bucky's ear. "This should be a time to celebrate. Or grieve. Both? Like a wake, right?"

Bucky made himself smile pleasantly as a random well-wisher passed by. Then he turned and gripped Tony's shoulder hard, and spoke in his ear. "You're going to pay for this, Stark. Drink up tonight, because the whole team's rising at the crack of dawn for an all-day training. Get ready tosuffer."

He actually felt Tony shiver, but when he pulled back the smile he gave Bucky was as sunny as it was smarmy. He cupped the back of Bucky's neck. "Worth it. I got Jarvis to capture the look on your face when we yelled surprise - totally worth it."

The bubble of irritation fought equally with a sort of amused exasperation. "Pepper told you it was a stupid idea, right?" he asked because surely someone in this house had common sense not to startle an war vet with enhanced reflexes.

Something flashed over Tony's face. There and gone again. "I didn't ask her," he said, and Bucky realized he hadn't seen her at the party at all.

He opened his mouth to ask, but Tony was steering him over to a knot of pretty agents, announcing that the man of the day deserved birthday kisses. And that... that wasn't so bad at all.

Even if Tony and Thor got into the game and laid a big smack on each cheek.

Bucky rubbed the side of his face, grinning sheepishly. The bristles of Tony's goatee had tickled a little.

It was only until later that he realized with the party going full swing he hadn't heard the boom of far off fireworks. Thank goodness for small mercies.

He escaped as the festivities wound down, sneaking out to sit outside on the beach. The sand was cool from the night air, and the stars were disappearing one-by-one as the sun rose from the east behind him.

Bucky didn't turn as he heard a pair of footsteps shuffle his way. He knew who it was without looking.

"What are you still doing up, Stark?"

Tony shrugged. He looked worn, the start of a five o'clock shadow around his goatee. He'd sobered a little over the last couple hours, though, and knocked Bucky on the shoulder as he sat down next to him. "You said punishment training this morning, right? Figured it was easier to stay up for it rather than going back to sleep. Good luck getting Bruce to come outside with a hangover, though."

Bucky tried to be annoyed, but it wasn't in him anymore. In the light of false-dawn, last night's anger felt very far away. "Go to sleep, Tony," he said with a sigh.

"I'm fine, Cap."

They sat there for a long time, watching the surf roll in and roll out. So different from where his mind kept going - the snowy alps - and that helped, too.

"I know you're thinking about your dead friend," Tony said, breaking the silence. "But can we talk about me for a second?'

Truthfully, Bucky was a little glad of the distraction, but telling Tony would only encourage him. "When are we not talking about you, ya narcissist?"

"True." Tony's grimace was sharp enough to cut glass. "Pepper says she's tired of competing against Iron Man. I think-no, I know I'm losing her."

"She's not wrong," Bucky said. "Elegant dames like her need someone to be there. Someone..." he racked his brain for the modern term, "emotionally supportive."

Tony sent him a narrow-eyed look. "Not helpful. Aren't you supposed to be making me feel better?"

"Nah," Bucky said. "I find anger's more productive." When Tony didn't react, he sighed. "You know there's a problem, so why aren't you trying to win her back, you dope?"

Tony grunted. "Maybe she's right."

"So what? Reality's never stopped you before."

"She could have been killed. I can't... Maybe I... " He'd brought a water bottle with him, and paused to swallow a gulp. Then he added in his quick, offhand way, "I don't have the right to put her in danger."

And maybe in Bucky's heart of hearts, he thought they were both fools for not trying to work it out. Tony was a fella who had a lot going for him, even aside from the money. He was smart, handsome, and despite all his bluster, he cared. Yes he had his faults, but it seemed to Bucky that people in the modern era were looking for the perfect relationship, one which didn't exist.

Bucky sighed and leaned back. "I don't get dames nowadays."

"They call them women, grandpa," Tony said. He fished another water bottle out of his jacket pocket and handed it over to Bucky. "And no one gets women. That's a universal truth."

They clinked water bottles to that, and Bucky took a sip, looking out to sea. "You know, Steve... he was the best man I ever knew, but he couldn't hardly talk to a gal. Clammed right up - you'd think they were going to bite him, the way he acted."

"Really?" Tony asked, amused.

Bucky nodded and actually found himself smiling, recalling the awful way Steve would bumble and stammer at anything with pretty legs. Seeing his half-hearted attempts with Peggy was pretty pathetic. "'Course, between you and me, I'm not so sure he liked da-women in that way."

Tony had been swallowing and choked a little. Helpfully, Bucky slapped him on the back.

"What?" Tony gasped, his eyes bright.

"We didn't talk it in those days, but looking back?" Bucky shrugged. "Makes sense. He had no instincts for ladies."

"Ow," Tony pressed a hand against his forehead. "Ow, my childhood. No, wait, he had all the muscles, right? Hot."

Bucky rolled his eyes and elbowed Tony in the side. "So anyway, if your relationships aren't working out with females, maybe you should try the other side. Get some dick, make yourself happy."

"Wow, that's both insulting and progressive."

"Brave new world," he said. Plus, he'd seen the tabloids. Tony wasn't exactly quiet 'bout the fact he had batted both left and right handed.

Tony gave him a sidelong glance. His grin was relaxed and loose enough almost to hide the pain in his eyes. "Don't tell me that's an offer, Barnes."

"Do I look like a cradle robber to you?"

"Bucky," He leaned close. Very close. "I'm losing the love of my life. This is my hour of need."

"Shut up."

"Are you blushing? Oh, Captain my Captain." Tony made a ridiculous kissy face.

Bucky easily shoved him away. But his heart was thumping hard, and he knew that while Tony was playing, the sudden flash of want he felt was bubbling too close to the surface. He had to shut this down, now. For the sake of the team and their friendship.

And maybe that reminded him a little of Steve, too.

"Tony," he looked him straight in the eye. "You ought to go after Pepper. You shouldn't let this one get away."

He could see the sarcastic reply hovering behind Tony's eyes. Then he shrugged. "Sure. Thanks, Barnes," he said eloquently, drank the rest of the water bottle in one long pull, then got unsteadily to his feet and walked away.

Bucky let him go, unsure what had just happened. Unsure he wanted to examine it too closely at all.

* * *

The mansion had three times the square footage than the orphanage Bucky grew up in, but with six Avengers, it wasn't all that big. When Pepper moved out, everyone knew.


	4. Chapter 4

All in all, Bucky could never say whether was pleased or annoyed when the continental United States seemed to explode with super villainy.

Not that he wanted anyone hurt, or appreciated the property damage after a battle, but constantly being called to assemble kept Tony from retreating too far into his lab after Pepper moved out.

And, though Bucky felt like a yellow-belly coward, he was secretly relieved being out on battle made it so he didn't see Pepper often. Every time he set eyes on her, he felt the need to apologize, even though he knew it was Iron Man as much as anyone else who had gotten between her and Tony.

Not him.

Assembling on a regular basis also allowed Natasha to lead more in the field. She'd take out a smaller team consisting of herself, Clint, and Thor for backup when dealing with small-fry, and missions that required some subtly. She was a damn good second in command, and Bucky let it be known to SHIELD and anyone else who'd listen that she should take over if Bucky ever fell.

Natasha, on hearing this, raised a perfect eyebrow. "I'm not American. I can't be Captain America."

"Lady America," Bruce corrected, with a smile that was more a wince.

"Captain America," Clint corrected. "Still gender neutral."

"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses," Tony quoted, flopping down on the couch in the living room. He saluted her with a iced tea that was probably more Long Island iced tea - back when there was a Long Island. Clearly, talking about Bucky's death made him uncomfortable, but Bucky had learned the hard way it was better than leaving it up in the air.

"And fighting with a shield is really not my style," Natasha continued.

Bucky shrugged. "So melt her down and make a vibranium widow's bite. I'll be dead - what do I care?" Though his heart did throb a little at the thought of destroying _Steve's_ shield.

Maybe something showed on his face. Natasha sighed, muttered something in Russian, and then brushed a kiss on his cheek. He took that as a yes.

But the month from Hell dragged on. Some days, the team got only a few hours rest before Shield picked up a lead on something rotten going down, and then there would be a new call to assemble.

When at last all five of them chased a sea serpent back into the pacific ocean on a formally pristine Maui beach, they stood together on the beach, all staring after it, to weary to be satisfied.

Iron man was silent, listing against a sullen, rather than angry, Hulk. Thor held Mjölnir to his side in a loose grip, his shoulders slumped. Natasha and Clint were practically hanging off one another to stay awake.

At last, Tony broke the silence. He sounded weary, even through Iron Man's computerized voice. "I have a beach house on the Big Island."

"Of course you do," Clint muttered.

Iron Man's head turned his way. "You don't have to crash there, Barton."

Bucky didn't think he had the energy to make it to the next island over, but the sand right here looked mighty fine. And if he was feeling this low, he couldn't imagine how the normal's - Tony, Natasha and Clint, - were coping. So he made an executive decision.

"All of you, gimme your communicators."

They looked at him like he was crazy, and he motioned for them to hurry up with one gloved hand. "Even in the war, we got forty-eight hour leaves. I'm putting in the call to Fury. Unless the Earth is ready to blow up, I don't wanna even hear the word 'assemble' for the two days. So give 'em to me, Captain's orders."

He didn't miss how everyone tried - and failed - to mask relief as they handed over the comms. They might pay for this later, but Fury did have an entire headquarters full of super secret spies to take care of minor emergencies.

Bucky tucked the communicators in his pocket. "Iron Man, you got enough juice to give us a lift?"

There was a telling pause. Then, "More efficient if we all go together. JARVIS is calling a water taxi."

More efficient. Yeah, right. That was Tony speak for he was running low on power, and he hadn't bothered saying a word. Bucky would kill him later.

Until then, he found some shade under a nice palm tree and sat down, pulling the cowl off his head.

The other Avengers took his cue and pulled up a spot as well. All except for the Hulk, who simply lay on the beach where he'd stood, the waves lapping at his toes. He'd shrink down to Bruce-size in a few minutes.

Leaning back against the palm tree, Bucky took a breath to brace himself, touched his own communicator, and put in a call to Fury to advise him of their new status.

* * *

Tony's beach house was big and, as promised on the tin, on the beach. That was about all Bucky had time to notice before he staggered to the nearest bedroom, stripped to his boxers and undershirt, and fell face-first into a large bed.

A minute or maybe an hour later, the bed dipped and he heard Tony's exhausted voice say, "Only three bedrooms here, and you took the master suite."

"I'm Captain, I get the big bed," Bucky replied petulantly. He ought to offer to take the couch, but hell, it wasn't the first time he'd shared a bed with one of his men. Winters grew cold in northern Europe, and everyone said he and Steve were like sleeping next to a cook fire anyhow. Bucky turned over, his back to Tony. "No snoring."

And whatever Tony said was lost as he fell back into sleep.

Bucky woke about six hours later, feeling muzzy. The weight of someone else's arm was warm across his chest. Tony twitched in his sleep, which was what had woken him up. Bucky hoped it wasn't a nightmare, though from the way Tony took sharp, shuddered breaths, it sounded like it.

"Hey." Bucky prodded him in the shoulder. "Snap out of it."

Brows drawing briefly together, Tony rolled over to the other side of the bed. He was wearing only garishly red boxers, and several ugly bruises stood over his back. Price of fighting sea monsters - Bucky's had already faded to yellow, thanks to his healing factor - but he didn't like to see proof that the Iron Man armor had some gaps.

He spent a few moments more than what was probably decent taking in the lines of Tony's back, the divots right above his hipbones. The air conditioner was running full blast in the room, and Bucky already felt chilled where Tony's arm had been resting. Briefly, he thought about pulling Tony in again; he could blame it on being a little grabby in his sleep, but... No. Tony might read more into it, and it wasn't right to lead a man on like that.

Bucky had enough rest for a bit. He sat up and took in the room.

The Iron Man suit sat, assembled in the corner. An electric cord ran from the wall outlet to the heart of the suit.

If Tony was charging it that way, the armor must have been close to dead of power.

"I'm still going to kill you, later," Bucky promised.

And Tony, who was asleep, muttered into his pillow, "Hmm, no. Pancakes first."

Flashing a smile, Bucky rolled out of bed to see what he could scrounge up to wear. His uniform still had sand in it.

Luckily, Tony, in typical playboy fashion, had extra clothes in various sizes in the dresser drawer. It didn't take long to find track pants and a tank top. Then, closing the door behind him, Bucky padded into the living area in search of coffee.

Thor was the only other one recovered enough to be awake. He sat on the couch with a box of half-eaten pop-tarts by his side.

"Captain!" he greeted, the TV remote looking tiny in his large hand. "We have once again made the top headlines for vanquishing our foe."

Bucky grunted and flopped down beside him, running a hand through his hair. It stuck up everywhere. He needed a haircut. "Sure. It's not every day you get to chase a sea-monster back into the ocean."

But as the news story cycled around again, the focus wasn't on the sea-monster at all, but of an image an amateur photographer had taken in black and white: Bucky leaning back against the palm tree, cowl off, and in that unguarded moment, looking every one of his ninety-five years in exhaustion. Around him, the other Avengers were sprawled, weary beyond all telling. Bucky was the only one who remained upright, and that was because he'd just gotten off the phone from chewing the ear off of Fury - Bucky knew that - but in that second in time he looked like a sentinel.

It was a sign of how useless he'd been that he hadn't even noticed the photographer.

"Great," Bucky groaned, throwing his head back on the couch. "Give that man a Pulitzer for photography."

"Indeed, that is already been discussed," Thor mused, and Bucky side-eyed him. Sometimes he got the impression that Thor had a very subtle sense of humor.

Thor continued, just as upbeat, "The local villagers have already announced they will honor our victory with a great feast. They call it a luau! There will be a roasted pig, and I understand this is a high honor."

"Pretty sure it's a promotional thing. You know, 'The Avengers ate here, you should too'," Bucky said because the streets of Depression-era Brooklyn raised cynics (unless your name was Steve Rogers), and Bucky was no exception. But his stomach gave its own opinion. Fire roasted pig did sound pretty good right now. He could eat one half, Thor the other.

Shrugging, he leaned back again and put his feet up on Tony's fancy coffee table. "As long as Delaware ain't blowing up or something, maybe we should." It had been awhile since they kicked up their heels as a team, anyway.

And maybe he could find a pretty dame to spend some time with. A quick talker with dark eyes, just so he could get this - whatever it was - out of his head.

* * *

As it turned out, they had to take a rain check on the luau. Fury called twelve hours later with an emergency that they wouldn't - couldn't - ignore. Some bright bulb had taken over a nuclear power plant, and then made a mess of the situation.

Radiation was nothing to the Hulk, and Tony remote piloted a suit into the reactor core. All in all, it resolved quickly, though it took all of Bucky's charm to get the Hulk to stand still afterwards, and let himself be scrubbed down for decontamination.

But after that... after that, there was finally a bliss filled week where evil decided to take a break. So the Avengers did, too.

* * *

"Alright, kids." Bucky heaved one overflowing sports bag in each hand. "Gear up - gloves, helmets, the works."

Instantly, he was surrounded by a group of rowdy eight-to-ten year olds, all clamoring for "their" helmet or mitt. All the equipment was the same, but try telling them that.

Bucky waited until most of the squabbling had passed, then glanced over. The head coach was talking to an anxious parent, a boy by her side. Wrangling parents was a part of the reason Bucky volunteered as only an assistant coach on his off time (he just didn't get how people would flip their lid over a little bruise or a black eye nowadays, and that hadn't gone over well with a few parents) - well, that, and the whole "consistently being on call to save the world/city" problem. Being an Avenger made any other commitments secondary.

But today he wasn't Captain America. He was James Barnes, assistant coach to the single worst co-ed little league team in the LA Basin.

Snugging his traitor LA Dodgers cap on his head, he grabbed his own mitt, and told the kids to meet him in the field for catching drills.

They did, shrieking like a bunch of hooligans. They were mostly low-income, inner city cases who got referred over by local YMCA's. Most of the kids were more interested in throwing a ball at each other's heads rather than learning the value of teamwork, but Bucky figured at least they were letting off steam. Sports had kept him out of big trouble when he was young - it might do the same here.

One of the boys had held back. Turning, he pointed up at the stands. "Who's that?"

Bucky glanced over and rolled his eyes. Maybe his enhancements had done something for his vision, or maybe he could just recognize Tony anywhere (and he was firmly not thinking about that).

"Get out there and partner up," he said to the boy, then bent to fish a light wiffle ball out of one of the sports bags. Taking note of the speed and direction of the wind, he cocked his arm back and let the ball fly.

He'd been aiming for the top of Tony's head, but it bounced harmlessly off the surface of his tablet he'd been holding, instead. Tony startled, looked up, and casually threw Bucky the finger.

Grinning, Bucky jogged over. "There are children present, you ass. What are you doing out of your cave?"

"Bruce's running a simulation that's powerful enough to use most of Jarvis' processing power for the next ten hours," Tony said. He looked pale in the bright sunshine, though he'd cleaned himself up, shaved away his five o'clock shadow, and wore a T-shirt that was... a little tight.

Tony looked pointedly out to the field, where the kids had gotten a hold of some of the baseballs and were tossing them back and forth to (and sometimes at) each other.

"They're kids," Bucky drawled at his confused expression. He didn't ask again what Tony was doing here. He had a feeling he already knew. "They're kinda like adults, but smaller."

"Louder," Tony replied.

"That too. It's good when they're loud - it's when they get quiet, you have to worry."

"Sounds like a voice of experience."

Bucky snorted. "My parents were Irish-Catholic. I was the oldest outta four."

Tony, mercifully, didn't ask what happened to Bucky's sisters. They all got split up at the orphanage, but Bucky doubted a one of them had survived the HYDRA bombing of New York.

"C'mon," he said, forcefully turning his mind from that, too. He hooked his hand under Tony's arm and pulled him to his feet. "The coach is busy, so you get to help - You fancy types know how to play baseball, right?"

He half-expected Tony to say no, but the man shrugged, folded his tablet into quarters (apparently, the next gen StarkTablets did that) and stuck it in his back pocket. "Baseball, no. Lacrosse, yes."

"Whatever, rich boy. Just keep the kids from hitting each other with bats. It's not hard."

* * *

An hour later, Gerri, the head coach and full-time police officer, joined a bemused looking Bucky.

"If you told me two years ago Captain America and Iron Man were going to help me coach my little league team, I would have detained you for a 72 hour hold in a mental facility."

Bucky snorted. The kids were clustered around Tony, who was explaining something in wide sweeping gestures - what it was, Bucky had no idea. Trust Tony to overcomplicate a simple game like baseball.

"Why do I get the feeling he's undoing all our work?" Bucky groused.

But watching Tony there, standing in the sun, the lines of his body as he waved his arms in manic glee, something warm shivered through Bucky. A clench of feeling he used to get when meeting a pretty girl's eyes across the dance hall, or sometimes when Steve had beamed his thousand-watt smile at him. He'd always acted on the first, never on the second, but he knew what it was. Attraction.

Aw, shit. He'd always had a weakness for his best friends.

Bucky was long used to clamping down on such thoughts, but it didn't mean the knowledge wasn't now simmering in the back of his mind.

Worse was when Tony spotted Bucky and Gerri watching. He turned to walk up to them. His smile was quick and sharp, but it did the same warm things to his insides that Steve's smile always had.

Bucky was in so much trouble.

"I'm thinking pizza party?" Tony said, then looked at Gerri. "Oh hi, I'm Tony Stark. You might know me from saving the world with this guy a dozen times."

Gerri, bless her heart, was mostly unfazed. She held out her hand. "Glad to meet you, Mr. Stark."

"Call me Tony. And pizza party! What do you say? I know a place that does gluten free. They don't deliver, but that's what I pay people for."

"Most of these kids already get too much junk to eat at home," Bucky said.

"Wow, really, Captain Calories?" Tony lowered the edge of his sunglasses to glance at him. "I thought depression-era kids ate everything in front of them."

"Hey, at least when the bread was cut with plaster, it was _only_ plaster. I've read the back of boxes nowadays, all the chemical dioxide crap that goes into everything."

"If you break down any component down to it's chemical-"

"At least get some peanuts," Bucky said. "This is baseball, it's traditional."

"Peanuts? With allergen rates skyrocketing these days, are you kidding? Never mind, you're not. Okay, pizza, we're doing this. I'm calling Happy."

Bucky cleared his throat, crossing his arms as Tony pulled out his phone and rattled off basically one of everything to his driver. Each boy and girl would probably take home a pizza. Bucky actually didn't mind one way or another, but squabbling with Tony has and always would be, fun.

Gerri was looking back and forth between them, one eyebrow raised. Chances were, she was just as blindsided as everyone was the first time under the full focus of Tony Stark, but Bucky couldn't shake the feeling she might see a little too deep.

"Done," Tony announced, sliding his phone back in his pocket. He caught Bucky's look and held up his hands. "Next time, I'll stop by a farmer's market on my way in. They can have all the oranges and raw honey they want. It'll be great."

"What's wrong with peanuts?" Bucky wanted to know.

Gerri just grinned as if she didn't want to get in the middle of this, and announced she was taking the group for a cool-down run around the bases.

Suddenly, there was an almighty BOOM in the distance. Bucky turned to see a yellow and orange fire ball bloom up over the distant trees and buildings. It was followed by a rat-tat-tat of semiautomatic gunfire.

Bucky caught Tony's eye. "Happy was my ride," Tony said, sensing his question. _Did he bring the armor?_

Bucky didn't have his shield, but he went nowhere without a concealed handgun and a knife. Minimum. He jerked his chin to the parking lot. "My bike's out back."

Tony nodded and broke into a sprint.

Turning, Bucky located Gerri, but she was already herding the kids to the dugout that was at least partially underground, and therefore safe. They couldn't do better than with a policewoman as their protector. It might be gang violence, might be aliens for all he knew nowadays, but she'd do right by them.

Gerri waved him on. "Go!"

Even with Tony's head start, Bucky still beat him to the parking lot. There was barely enough room for two to fit on the crotch-rocket. Bucky drove, and did not let himself think about how Tony pressed behind him, one arm wrapped securely around his waist.

Tony's communicator watch pinged, and he yelled something that Bucky couldn't catch, even with his enhanced hearing. It didn't matter. He turned the corner and raced down the next street where the smoking ruin of a limo lay, bullet holes littering the side panels.

People were starting to crowd around; Some were on their cell phones, some looked on, afraid, but none were carrying weapons. Or if they were, they concealed it well. Whoever had done this had fled.

The wail of sirens were getting louder as Bucky, several civvies, and Tony got a burned and unconscious Happy out of the wreckage.

Tony's limo. First Pepper had been targeted, now Happy.

Bucky scanned the gathering crowd, taking in every face. Then he looked to the limo, noting where the bomb had went off and where the majority of the bullet holes had been clustered - to the center of the vehicle, not the front.

He stepped closer to Tony, who was hovering over his friend, his hands shaking.

"Tony-" Bucky said in an undertone.

"I know," Tony snapped. He met his eyes and Bucky saw fear there, but also anger. Tony understood, faster than he had. He was in danger. "I'm not leaving him. Watch the crowd for me."

Bucky put a hand on his shoulder, but stood and did just that - one hand on Tony, the other touching the handgun in his pocket - until the first ambulance arrived.

* * *

The hospital entrance was soon a madhouse with media. Happy was put under medical sedation, and it didn't take long for the rest of the team to arrive, though there was nothing much they could do. Happy was expected to survive, but not without a lot of physical therapy on the way out. Tony sat by his side and insisted the TV in the hospital room be turned to Downton Abbey, for Happy's sake.

As soon as he could, Bucky pulled Natasha aside and into the hallway.

"You're thinking what I'm thinking 'bout this, right?"

There were very good reasons why Nat was his second in command. She nodded. "Someone expected Tony to be in that limo."

And he might have been, if Tony hadn't sent Happy for pizza. Bucky felt sick inside.

Natasha continued, "Stark made a lot of enemies while he was a weapons manufacturer. Even more when he stopped."

"I want an Avenger with him at all times, until we get this figured out." _Until we put some heads on some stakes_, he mentally added.

She raised an eyebrow at him. "Clint's already scouting parameter, through the vents."

Bucky's grin had a feral edge. "I don't care what Fury says about you, you're alright, Natasha."

"I could kill you, in six ways," she said coolly.

And didn't Bucky and his confused libido know it.

Speaking of libido's, he had to make himself go back to the room, sit, and not hover while Tony tapped on this tablet, scanning through news reports and whatever JARVIS could pick up from satellites.

Tony suddenly made a deep, throaty sound that made Bucky's head snap up and around to him like he was on a goddamn magnet.

"Find something you like?" Bucky asked, his throat feeling a little dry.

Bruce's head had come up as well, looking between them, but said nothing.

"Got the download from the limo sensors and cams," Tony said in satisfaction.

Clint, who had come in and switched with Thor for patrol, looked at him sharply. "You have cameras in your limousines, Stark? How paranoid are you?"

"Hello!" Tony waved at himself, then, depressingly, at Happy on the bed a few feet away. Clint winced.

Tony flipped the tablet around so all could see. The image he pulled up was grainy, so Bucky stood and peered for a closer look, but there was no point. Even with the mask and sunglasses, the blond hair and strange metallic glint around the man's left arm told him everything. "Hans Gruber," he said lowly. "That's the asshole that fired a grenade at us in the Las Vegas tower."

Tony placed two fingers of the left side of the picture and stretched it out, as they did nowadays. "What's this?" he asked, meaning the arm. "Some kind of fashion statement? GWAR's coming back in style?"

"It's a cybernetic metal arm," Natasha said.

Everyone turned toward her. She was staring at the picture, her lips pinched so hard they were white around the edges.

"Nat?" Clint asked, softly.

She didn't take her eyes off the picture. "I know who this is. I thought - I hoped it wouldn't be..." She shook her head.

Bucky had seen only brief flashes of fear from her, usually in the middle of a battle going wrong. Natasha was never rattled. Never like this. Clint nudged in close, not putting his arm around her, but silently offering support. Natasha leaned into him.

"Who is he?" Tony asked, his voice hard.

"They call him the Winter Soldier." She took a breath. "Most of intelligence agencies think's he's a ghost. No one is sure who he works for, or even if he actually exists. But I've seen him." Then she tugged down the hem of her jeans and panties to show some skin. Bucky, torn between looking away and looking closer, didn't get much of a choice when he spied the wicked bullet scar just over her otherwise perfect hip. "I got this when he shot through me to get to his target." She quirked her lips. "Bye-bye bikinis."

Clint brushed his lips against Natasha's temple. "War wounds are sexy, babe."

She twisted a smile at him, and now Bucky did glance away, wanting to give them some privacy. And yes, there was jealousy there, too. He hadn't had a pretty girl on his arm since - gosh, the little village the Commando's had stopped at right outside Paris. Even then, she hadn't been his girl. Just a little shelter from the night. A little company to get his mind off Steve.

He wondered if she ever told her grandchildren about the smooth American soldier who had made her giggle during war.

"What else can you tell us about him?" Tony asked, and there was an intense glint in his eyes that Bucky wasn't sure he liked.

"Only that he never misses."

"Well, he's oh-for-two this time," Bucky grumbled. Clint raised a fist, and they bumped. Sometimes he had a handle on this new millennium thing.

"That's a point," Bruce said, speaking up for the first time. He removed his glasses and rubbed a smudge with the edge of his shirt. "For a man who supposedly has a scary kill record, there's been a lot uh," he glanced guilty at Happy, "accidental collateral damage."

Tony visibly paled. "Collateral damage." Then his eyes flicked to the right, and to the left as he thought rapidly. "Yeah. Okay." He walked out.

"Um, what?" Clint asked, looking at the others in confusion.

"Go after him," Natasha snapped to Bucky.

She shouldn't have bothered. Bucky was halfway out the door.

For someone without enhancements or magical abilties, Tony could move fast when he was angry. Bucky caught up with him at the elevator, and just managed to slide in as the doors shut.

"Plan on going lone wolf again, Ace?" Bucky asked, lightly.

Tony didn't meet his eyes. His gaze was somewhere in the future, planning the only way a Stark could. His fingers twitched in the same way they always did before a fight. "Nope. I'm just opening our hailing frequencies, Captain."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Bucky asked.

But before Tony could reply. The elevator opened to the lobby floor, and the horde of media waiting outside for them burst into a frenzy. Tony turned to Bucky and winked. "Put on your game face."

Bucky forced himself into casual arrogance, the sway of a man looking to impress a dame on the dance floor. Dealing with the media was a sort of dance, anyway, and he'd always been good at it.

They walked out among flashing cameras and shouted questions.

"Mr. Stark!" One obnoxious reporter asked, shoving a camera phone in their faces. "Was this an attempted assassination on you personally, or an attack on the Avengers?"

"Captain America!" another yelled, "Can you comment on what the Avenger's response will be?"

Tony straightened and jutted out his chin. "You want a response? You got it."

Oh no, Bucky thought. Keeping the movement small so that it wouldn't be picked up by the cameras, he moved closer and rested his fingers on small of Tony's back in warning; Tony's muscles were tight and trembling with pent-up rage.

But Tony's expression was cool as he looked into the cameras and said. "This is a message to the coward known as the Winter Soldier: You've just made a fatal mistake, buddy. I'm an Avenger, and when you mess with one of us, you get all of us." He tilted his head slightly, considering. "But let's cut to the chase. You wanted a fight? You have it. Here's the address to our headquarters: Ten, eight eighty Malibu Point. Nine oh two six five. Come on by, on the off chance you're a man."

Then he turned and walked back the way he came. There was a stunned silence, even from the reporters, and it took everything Bucky had not to look as gob-smacked as he felt.

Well, there was nothing else for it.

"We'll leave the door unlocked," Bucky added, and threw a sarcastic salute to the cameras, the world, and hopefully the Winter Soldier.

Then he turned and followed Tony out.


	5. Chapter 5

At least Bucky had experience before preparing for battle.

JARVIS had a military mode - self-defense protocols, Tony called it - and everyone took shifts through the night to check the perimeter around their Malibu headquarters/mansion. Bucky didn't order it, but the team stayed in uniform as well, and he didn't let the his shield out of his sight.

Two days later, Happy was still in a medically induced coma, and there hadn't been hide or hair of any soldiers, Winter or otherwise.

Bruce joined Bucky as he stood out on the landing deck on the roof of the mansion, face turned towards the sea.

It was a perfect Southern California day - the summer sun mixing with the ocean breeze in a way he used to dream about during Brooklyn winter nights.

He'd made his place here, but sometimes he still trade it all back in a second.

Maybe Bruce sensed his mood, because he stood with Bucky for a long while, enjoying the view. All of JARVIS's sensors were on full alert, and there had been two false alarms twice today, tripped by a stray bird and strong wind. JARVIS was a super computer, but he'd been set on a hair-trigger.

Now it was calm and quiet. Even the media clustered a quarter mile away at the driveway gates had started to drift off over the last few hours.

Bruce sighed and broke the silence. "The thing about Tony Stark," he said out of nowhere, but Bucky didn't stop him or pretend he wasn't what was really on his mind, "is he makes the mistake that if he's not going forward, he's moving backwards. He doesn't stand still."

"Why bother being patient when you can buy everything you want at the drop of a hat?" Bucky groused. That was probably hitting below the belt, but it wasn't as if Tony was there to hear it. Besides, he was still a bit sore from being blindsided during the announcement.

Bruce quirked an eyebrow. "You think inviting the fight to us is a bad, uh, tactical move?"

"No," Bucky admitted. "If we knew where the Winter Soldier lived, we'd be there in a split second. Since we don't?" He shrugged. "Besides... home games are always more fun."

"We would have avenged Happy anyway. He's our friend," Bruce agreed.

"Yeah," Bucky said, then looked at Bruce, noting the tightening around his eyes. "How are you holding up?"

"Waiting is... stressful," Bruce admitted, meaning he was probably having a bit of trouble keeping the Hulk down in a suddenly charged atmosphere. "But I can't argue if it produces results."

They were silent for another moment. Then Bruce glanced at him.

"But you know the real reason Tony pushed for a confrontation, right?"

"Because he's an impulsive jackass."

"That," Bruce agreed, "and because JARVIS has protocols to watch traffic patterns. He would have noticed if Tony's limo had been followed from here. The Winter Soldier had to have started from the baseball field, which means he was there."

Bucky felt his mouth go dry. "What are you saying?

Bruce shrugged, looking down in that obtrusive way he had whenever had had to deliver a hard truth. "Maybe he was waiting for Tony to show up at your ballpark- though that seems unlikely. Tony's never gone there before. Most likely, he was watching you, but decided to target Happy instead."

"Why?"

"That is the question." Bruce paused, then offered, "Can you think of why someone would consider using you to get at Tony?"

Bucky couldn't help the flare of anger, and yes, of shame. Things were getting out of hand if the team had noticed - especially if some of theirenemies had seen the way he and Tony were around one another. "Yeah, I can," he said with a bit of force. "Why, you got something to say about it?"

He didn't know what he expected; condemnation, perhaps? Anger? Bruce's quiet, sympathetic smile and shrug wasn't it.

Instantly, Bucky felt like a heel. He turned away from Bruce, running a hand back through his hair. "Sorry."

"It's fine. I just wanted to be sure you knew. And that, you know, you had an ear, if you wanted to talk about it."

Bucky turned back, eyes narrowed. "You were sent up to talk to me, weren't you?"

He didn't meet his eye. Damn science bros. "Why don't you come inside, Bucky," was Bruce's calm answer. "Team's having dinner. Nat says we should talk strategy."

But somehow, after dinner was over and everyone moved to the living room, Natasha declared she and Clint were going to go patrolling around the property, and Bruce made noises about needing to be in his lab for an important experiment. Bucky gave them the fish-eye, especially when Thor said - loudly - he was needed to commune with the clouds. Whatever that meant.

So he and Tony were left alone.

"Our kids ain't as subtle as they think," Bucky said.

"Subtly is overrated," Tony decided, then tilted his head. "And you're right. They're kinda our kid, except for Bruce who is my brother from another mother. But... does that make you or me the dad?"

"I'm the old out-of-towner, come back from the war. You're the rich young thing with too much money than sense," Bucky said.

Tony snorted leaned back on the couch they were sharing, took a swig of bottled water and then let out a long, loud breath. "So, while we're here and conveniently alone..."

Bucky made a show of rolling his eyes, but his heart was pounding.

"Are we going to talk about this?" Tony asked.

Yes. No. "'bout what?"

"You and me. This attraction. The moments we had, the moment we're having-"

"Geez," Bucky said half-exasperated, looking around. But they were alone in the room. "Cool your motor mouth."

"I can do more with my mouth," Tony shot back.

Bucky stared at him for a second, then laughed. "Really, Stark? That's going to be your line?"

"I can do better than that, but you're not-" Tony shut his mouth, lines etched between his brows. "If I've been misreading, I-fine. I can accept that."

And there it was, all out in the open. Bucky had to admit, it was pretty brave of Tony. And he had the feeling that if he told him to, Tony might even keep his word, and stop flirting. Stop hinting. But did Bucky actually want that?

He and Steve had been friends - he never really even knew if Steve had been interested in more. Probably not, especially after Peggy Carter came into the picture.. And that was fine. Bucky would never have let himself drag Steve down, back then.

Now? It was a new world, and he wanted Tony. He wasn't sure if he could be close to him and not want him as more than just a friend.

Bucky took a breath, and even though he scraped up every bit of courage he had in reserve, his voice still came out soft, almost hesitant. "You haven't been misreading."

Tony blinked once, slowly. "Okay. Good? So how come I'm sensing a 'But' in there?"

"There's a few I can think of."

Tony scooted a little closer, his knee edging against Bucky's. "You're not gay, just Tony-sexual? I get it. I even understand it."

He had to work not to smile. The man was an ass, but a charming one. "It's not just us. We got a team to think about."

"You don't have a problem with Clint and Natasha," Tony challenged.

"They're different."

"Because she's a woman? Unfair, Cap. And sexist. Reverse sexist."

Bucky nudged Tony's knee again. "Because Nat has it more together than all of us lunk-heads combined." He paused, considering. "And she keeps Clint in line."

"We can still be friends - with benefits. Sexy benefits," he clarified, in case Bucky was too much of a dope to get it.

"You think that kinda talk is going to turn my head?" This was easy, this kind of banter. Bucky could feel familiar ground under him again.

"Yes?" Tony tried, then twitched at Bucky's look. "Okay, no, I can do better."

Bucky leaned back, dragging his eyes up and down the length of Tony's body in a way he'd never let himself openly do to another man before. His gaze lingered on Tony's lips.

"Do better," Bucky told him.

Tony's smile was a quick thing. He shifted around, one hand resting on the top of the couch, leaning into Bucky's space. "I've won People's Sexiest Man two times."

"You keep throwing that out there like it means something," Bucky replied, his eyes still on Tony's smart mouth. "'sides, I get more fan mail."

They were an inch apart. Tony leaned in, his smirk all playboy and daring, but you couldn't bullshit a bullshitter. Bucky caught him short, cupping his hand around Tony's cheek and drew him close. If he was doing this, it was going to be proper. Not a game.

They kissed. Tony's mouth was soft and unexpectedly sweet, despite the tickle of his goatee. Bucky curled his hand around to cradle his head. His fingers tangled in his hair as he opened his mouth to Tony, letting him in.

Tony slid fully over, one leg over Bucky's to straddle his lap. From this angle, Tony was taller, and Bucky felt him smile against his lips. Daringly, Bucky slid his other hand up from Tony's arm and down his torso - hard muscle. None of the curves of a woman, but he didn't mind it. Natasha would be like that, too. It didn't matter one way or another that Tony was a man, only that he was Tony.

That realization hit Bucky hard. He drew back.

"Too much?" Tony asked lightly, but his eyes were searching for doubt on Bucky's face.

He shook his head. "No, it's just..." His eyes scanned over Tony's face. "You."

"Eloquent," Tony said. "You can do better, Barnes." He dipped his head again, lips a question over Bucky's. Is this okay?

Yes, Bucky thought. Hell yes. He pressed forward.

They kissed, slow and filthy. Tony, clearly looking to impress, was pulling out all his tricks, teasing him out, inviting Bucky to explore his own mouth with languid licks, and sucking on his tongue when he did.

Bucky groaned, shutting his eyes. He rolled his hips upwards once, twice, just wanting to feel.

Tony looped his hands lazily around his neck, his body language open and inviting Bucky to touch his fill. Daringly, Bucky ran a hand down the swell of his ass - he would have never tried this with a girl so fast. Tony only murmured encouragement, and Bucky gave him a squeeze.

"What's it like?" he asked, drawing back a little.

Luckily, Tony didn't need clarification. "With a man? Little messier, little tighter." Tony nipped Bucky's bottom lip, then lower, on his chin, adding, "Little hotter."

Bucky swallowed. He wasn't sure he was going to try - that - yet. His fingers tightened and he rolled his hips again up against Tony, earning a startled, pleased sound from the other man. It rocked straight to Bucky's core, and the thought of getting Tony off, seeing what he looked like riding his lap, made his mouth water.

He kissed him again, hard and claiming, and Tony practically melted into it. He made an almost lewd groan when Bucky dipped his head to pay attention to the side of his throat.

"Warning," Tony's voice was low. "Kissing my neck guarantees an approximate 174% chance my clothes are coming off."

"That so?" He brushed his lips to the corner under Tony's jaw, then exhaled to see the skin prickle. "I like it when you talk scientific to me, doll."

Tony smirked and tipped his head back in silent askance. "Really? What else gets you hot? Rocket science, applied physics, mathematics - I know all the mathematics."

Bucky kissed his throat, "Pick something, we'll go from there." He kissed the same again with a little teeth, lingering, and heard Tony's breath catch. Bucky dropped his hand to rest on Tony's upper thigh, wanting to touch, wanting to unzip and take him out, stroke him, and keep him talking all the way through.

But this was all new territory, and Bucky didn't want to take liberties. He hesitated and asked, "Can I?"

Tony hummed and leaned back, grinning fondly at Bucky as if he was reading his thoughts. "Whatever you want, old man. This is your show."

There was a single point of light, a red dot, on Tony's forehead.

Bucky jerked Tony to the side and down. A bullet cracked into the TV behind them.

Then all hell broke loose. Bucky shoved Tony off the couch and to the ground. He snatched up his shield and brought it up as the entire world seemed to rain metal bullets.

One person under the shield was a tight squeeze. Two was almost impossible. Hot fire raced up his calf as a bullet grazed him.

The pain, at least, took care of what was left of his erection. Snarling, Bucky tucked up around Tony as much as possible, while Tony yelled, "JARVIS!"

There was the whine of repulsers, and then the assembled Iron Man suit skidded into the room, bullets sparking off the metal casing. It crouched in front of them, taking up the slack.

Then, distantly, Bucky heard the sound of helicopter rotors. The Winter Soldier had brought friends.

What hell had happened to their warning system?

"You just had to give him our address," he complained.

"I own an insurance company," Tony shot back. "I'm sick of paying out city damage claims."

Bucky grinned at him, and Tony grinned right back, fierce and feral and alive. And even though death was raining in on all sides, and battle adrenaline and lust were colliding in his head, a part of Bucky's heart he thought would be frozen forever flickered back to life. He kissed Tony hard on the mouth, then said, "On three, I'm rolling to the right. Gonna draw them off. Get in your suit."

Tony had a slightly glazed look in his eyes. But he nodded.

"One, two-"

Lightning from an angry Thunder God crackled ominously overhead. The gunfire ceased. That was probably Nat and Clint's doing, holding the parameter.

Bucky rolled away, still holding the shield up in front of them, just in case. Only then did he realize the comm unit had been silent in his ear the entire time. He toggled the button. "Avengers, report."

"Frequencies on almost all bands are being jammed," said Iron Man's computerized voice. Bucky glanced over to see the last of the armor sliding into place, and the eyes glowing to life.

Tony turned to the panoramic windows, one palm outstretched.

At least five helicopters were visible on approach - four, after a bolt of lightening struck down, shattering one into a fireball.

It still left four missiles to be launched straight at the house.

Strong, gauntleted fingers gripped Bucky's reinforced belt. "Hold on," Tony warned, and suddenly they were shooting towards the windows. Bucky held up the shield to take the impact of the glass. It shattered around them, and they were up and into the air a moment before the missiles hit.

Looking down, he saw at least two dozen black clad men advancing on the mansion. A few were already downed by arrows sniped at them from the nearby palm trees.

Bruce had been working in the basement lab. Sure enough, there was an almighty roar. The Hulk crawled out of the shattered remains and hurled a cement beam right into a helicopter which had gotten too close. He was going to be on a rampage - Bruce had no control when he changed in surprise.

One helicopter fired at them. Bucky threw the shield and struck right under the rotor. The blade made a grinding sound as it froze, and the helicopter tumbled into the sea.

Tony landed them on the beach under the cliff, which apparently had been used as a staging area. It took a couple minutes and some quick work to clear area of several black clad goons. There was no insignia on their clothing - nothing at all to indicate who these people worked for, or what they wanted other than a fight.

Then the last one stepped into the open. He was different from the others. A huge man, tall and broad with muscle, his long, dirty blond hair falling in his face. He wore wrap-around sunglasses, and a dark mask that looked almost like a muzzle. His left sleeve was open, showing a glinting metal arm with a red star on the shoulder.

Tony turned towards the Winter Soldier, and Bucky could practically see the angry smirk under Iron Man's mask. "Look who's decided to join the party."

The Soldier didn't reply. He advanced, unhurried, but fast. Too fast. Tony fired his repulsers with both palms, but the Soldier dodged, took an easy step to the side with grace, and backhanded Iron Man hard with his metal hand. Tony stumbled back, firing again. It went wide.

Tony had his chance. Now it was Bucky's turn. He aimed and threw his shield as hard as he could.

The Winter Soldier turned and caught it in one metal grip.

Bucky barely had time to think, _What the hell_...? before the Winter Soldier pivoted, shield in hand, and hurled it at IronMan.

It hit edge-on with a crack of snapping metal, right over the arc reactor. And it returned back to the Soldier's hand, easy and neat as Bucky himself had ever thrown it. Iron Man staggered backwards, sparks spitting from a deep gash.

"Son of a bitch," Bucky growled, and grabbed his gun from his holster.

He fired, but the Soldier ducked and twisted to avoid it and every other one Bucky emptied at him, blocking with the shield, along with a too-late repulser blast from Iron Man. Shield still in hand, the Solider sprang and brought it down again on Iron Man. They both went down.

Bucky was twenty strides away. Even with all his enhanced speed, all his power, he wasn't fast enough. He watched, like a dream where he was caught in molasses and everyone else was going normal speed, as the Soldier slammed the edge of the shield again and again on Tony's armor in piston-like, brutal strikes, cracking the suit open like an egg.

The last one struck over the face-plate. Tony went still.

"No!"

Bucky threw himself at the Soldier in an ungraceful tackle. His fist struck the side of the Soldier's head, and the man's wrap-around sunglasses went flying in one direction, the shield in the other.

They rolled, and the Solder kicked him away. Bucky regained his feet, standing between the Soldier and Iron Man, who was still down and unmoving.

The Soldier stalked toward Bucky, a knife clutched in his metal fist. His blue eyes were empty.

"C'mon!" Bucky growled, his blood boiling. He blocked the first swipe with the outside of his arm. "That's all you got, punk?"

Maybe it was his imagination, but the Soldier seemed to hesitate. Sensing an opening, Bucky came up under his guard with a solid right hook, throwing all his enhanced strength, all his fury and fear for Tony behind it.

He landed a blow on the side of the mask that should have knocked anyone for a loop. The Soldier's head snapped to the side, but he didn't even shift his weight.

Then something flickered in the back of the Soldier's eyes. He struck back.

Everything move that happened in the next few seconds was instinct. The only reason Bucky stayed alive and on his feet were as a result of the long lost knife lessons Jacques Dernier had given him. He still wasn't fast enough. The edge of the Soldier's knife caught his sleeve and ripped, but Bucky grabbed the man's human wrist, and punched him again. His fingers digging into the tendons to try to get him to release the knife. Then there was the whirl of gears while the metal arm caught him. The Soldier straightened, and Bucky's feet left the earth as he was literally tossed over the Winter Soldier's shoulder and slammed, hard, to the ground.

Then the Winter Soldier was on him, one hand locking one of Bucky's arm's above his head, knee pinning Bucky's other arm to the ground. The knife was still gripped in the Soldier's free hand.

"Who are you?" the Soldier demanded. His voice was muffled by the mask, slightly dented where Bucky had struck it.

Snarling, Bucky brought up a knee to try to kick him off.

The Soldier's eyes narrowed. His metal fist slammed down on the inside of Bucky's right shoulder.

Bucky heard the distinct sound of his own collarbone snapping, and a lance of agony shot through him, making him cry out. Then the Soldier shifted, bringing Bucky's wrist high over his head into a stretch that ground the two broken bones together.

Bucky screamed.

"Who are you?" the Soldier demanded again.

Panting, Bucky grit his teeth against another cry and glared at him, summoning up all his guff. "Buddy, I'm the leader of the team who's gonna take you down."

The Soldier blinked once. Then he reached up with his free hand and unclasped the back of his own mask. It came away and fell to the ground.

It was as if Bucky had been plunged back into the arctic water all over again. His veins, his blood had frozen over. No, worse, he was back on the train, reaching out, and Steve was only an inch away, but falling too fast.

It couldn't be. _It couldn't be._

"Steve?" he choked.

It was him. Every inch of him; his hair longer and hanging ragged around his eyes, reddish blond scruff on his chin, but other than that he was just as he had been the day he fell into the gorge.

Steve looked down at Bucky with dead, blue eyes. He cocked his head and repeated. "Steve?"

"No, I-Steve, it's me. It's Bucky. I'm Bucky, don't you remem-"

Steve leaned forward as if to study him closer. Bucky made the mistake of taking his eyes off that knife. So it came as a surprise when Steve stabbed him through his right side, neatly between two ribs. Bucky cried out in shock, arching up.

"I know you," Steve said, still very calm. Remote. "Where?"

He couldn't think, couldn't breathe. Steve couldn't be- this couldn't be real. Oh God...

Then Steve twisted the knife, and Bucky swore he heard something splinter; a rib, or maybe it was just his heart breaking. He screamed and thrashed - fractured collarbone be damned- but Steve held him pinned down like a bug.

"Where?" Steve repeated.

"I... I... You're my friend. You're Steve Rogers, Steve-Stop, fuck-stop!"

The knife twisted viciously, and Bucky's vision went white. He might have passed out for a moment because a sharp slap across the face brought him back.

"Tell me," Steve growled, leaning down, right over him, hunger livid on his face. Bucky couldn't breathe - it was more than Steve's weight - there was a terrible pressure in his chest. Punctured lung. He couldn't suck in enough air. Barely had enough to speak. But he had too. He had too.

"You've... been my best friend... since we were kids..." he wheezed.

Strange how much more it hurt for the knife to pull out rather than to push in. Bucky's pained groan took the last of his breath, and his entire right side felt wet and warm.

"I don't remember," Steve intoned. Whatever emotion on his face before was now gone. The knife he held dripped blackish blood, and he wiped it clean on his own thigh. "You are not my mission."

No, Bucky wasn't his mission. Tony was. Bucky could taste copper in his mouth, thick and choking. "No," he gasped.

But Steve released his hold, turning away. Bucky held no more interest for him.

Desperately, Bucky grabbed at his pant leg, trying to stop him. _No, you're Steve Rogers. You're good and kind, and you were born in 1917 - how are you alive, Stevie? I'm sorry... I'm so damned sorry..._

He wasn't sure how much of that he said aloud, if any of it at all. Steve easily brushed him aside, rising.

"Think fast, Blondie," said Iron man's computerized voice.

Bucky heard an electronic whine, then there was a brilliant flash of light from Iron Man's chest repulser. Steve was hit dead on and flung back at least twenty feet.

Iron Man fell ungracefully to Bucky's side, sparks and hydraulic fluid both spurting from gashes in the suit. Tony wrapped an arm underneath him, and Bucky felt an unpleasant electric buzz as Tony magnified his armor to the metal plating in Bucky's uniform.

Being lifted hurt like nothing else, but he didn't have air to complain about it. His head rolled back in time to see Steve rising again to his feet, his vest smoking a little, but alive. Thank God.

_Let me down_, Bucky thought, pushing weakly at Tony._ I can't leave him again..._

But Iron Man took off in a lurching, ungraceful climb. Only half of the flight stabilizers seemed to be working, the others shorting, jostling them both.

_You gotta take me back..._

"Cap, JARVIS says you're bleeding out. Stay with me."

Bucky didn't care. He'd lost sight of Steve in the smoking remains. What if he met up with the Hulk or Natasha? They didn't know Steve from Adam - they'd try to kill him.

"Call... 'em off, 's Steve..." He could barely hear his own voice above the wind, and Iron Man made no reply.

Bucky's vision grew dark at the edges, and his mouth was wet with blood, the taste choking him.

Tony was saying... something. Bucky wasn't following. He couldn't keep his eyes open any longer.

"... Bucky?... Bucky?!"

The rushing air was cold around him, and in his mind he wasn't in Tony's arms. He was back at the bottom of the snowy mountain ravine, kneeling over the broken body of his friend.

_You were dead. Hand to God, Steve, you were dead and gone... how can you be..._


	6. Chapter 6

**Note:** Just a friendly reminder that my character's opinions don't always match my own. Bucky grew up in a society where people didn't often seek out mental health experts, and he hasn't gotten over that.

* * *

Bucky woke, sore.

He tried to shift around to relieve the annoying pinch in his side, the dull ache in his collarbone. His arms were too heavy to lift - no. Not heavy. Tied down.

The smell of antiseptic brought him around, and he knew where he was: strapped to the lab table, back in the prison camp just outside of Azzano. They were sticking needles in him, asking him things he couldn't understand. He opened his mouth to curse at them, but it was full. There was something hard between his lips, shoved down into his throat.

Dimly, he heard high-pitched beeping that had never been in the lab, but blind panic struck through him like a bolt of lightning. He tugged sharply at the bindings, heard something snap. His right arm was free, and he clawed at the gag in his mouth, coughing and retching as it came out and out. He dragged in air that hurt going in and going out. Someone yelled above him. Hands tried to push him back down. He shoved them away, heard a crash of equipment.

Something had been rubbed into his eyes - a clear gel he couldn't blink away. Bucky sat up, pushing past the drag of wires and tubes. He heard his own breath sawing out of him, almost sobs as he ripped wire after wire away until he was finally, _finally_ free.

His eyes cleared.

The hospital room around him was in shambles.

Hospital. He was in a new century, New York was blasted to bits, they'd won the war, he lived in a superhero frat house, Steve was...

Steve was...

He couldn't think it, knew he barely had enough control of his sanity without adding_ that_.

Bucky hunched over, an arm wrapped around his aching chest, breathing hard but still feeling like he wasn't getting enough air. Shaking. His bare legs stuck out of a flimsy-ass hospital gown.

Focusing on his quaking knees, he tried to control his breathing. He'd learned a couple things from his forced SHIELD therapy sessions. He tried to be in the moment, here, and not back in a German prison camp. Everyone who had been there was dead, anyway, or was old enough to have one foot out the door. There was no reason to feel this way, to be so frightened he shook...

"Hey."

Bucky glanced up. A black man about his age - his perceived age - stood, leaning against the door frame to the hospital room. His arms were down by his sides, nothing in his hands. "Mind if I come in?" the man asked.

"Free country," Bucky rasped. The breathing tube had torn his throat to shreds. He didn't know who this guy was, or why Bucky was in what looked like a civilian hospital room and not SHIELD medical - maybe he worked for SHIELD. "My team?"

Something like approval flickered in the man's eyes. "Safe. Your pal, Stark, had to get his nose put back into place, but you were the worst off. You're in Kings County hospital - you've been unconscious for two days."

Two days. Bucky glanced around the hospital room, the broken equipment and untethered IV lines that were dripping fluid on the floor. "Did I... hurt anyone?"

"No, man. But there are a lot of scared nurses. You have more tranqs running in your system than can down an elephant." He took another cautious step closer, then held out his hand. "Sam Wilson."

Bucky unwrapped his hand from his side and shook it. There was a trickle of blood from his wrist where he'd ripped out the IV, but the wound was already clotting. "James Barnes, call me Bucky." His throat was clearing a little, as was some of the fuzziness in his head. His own mouth tasted like shit, and his lips were chapped. He was becoming aware of his surroundings again - from the sounds of breathing in the hallway, and the shuffled feet, he suspected the medical staff were hiding just out of view.

He turned to look out the window, seeing black night.

"It's three in the morning," Sam said to his unasked question. It also explained why none of his team were there. "They told me you just got out of ICU."

Bucky started to reply, but it was cut off by a coughing fit. And oh shit, that hurt. Definitely working with busted ribs on top of the collarbone. He tasted something salty in the back of his throat he didn't care to think about, too.

"You alright?" Sam asked. But he didn't move closer. Smart man.

Bucky nodded, waving him away. "Why's a head shrink doing the late shift?"

Sam grinned to show a gap between his two front teeth, but he didn't dispute he was a loony doc. "I don't work here - I work at the VA. Just visiting a buddy." He let his eyes roam up Bucky. "He doesn't like needles very much either."

I like needles just fine, Bucky wanted to say, but the lie wouldn't come. He looked away.

"Anything you need to make yourself more comfortable?" Sam asked. "Water?"

"Pants. It's a little drafty." Plus, he'd make less of a scene if he had to run out of here in a hurry.

Again, he got the impression Sam knew what he was thinking. "I'll see what I can do."

Someone cleared his throat at the door. Sam glanced over his shoulder, then nodded at the man in a lab coat. "The doctor wants to see you, if you're up for it." Which was nice, the way he phrased it. Like Bucky had a choice.

Sam must have read the look on his face. "No one here will force you to do anything, though by the way you're protecting your ribs you're still in a world of hurt. They can give you something to help."

"No needles," he said. "No pills. No..." His jaw tightened. "Surprises."

"No surprises," Sam repeated, like Bucky was being reasonable and wasn't completely off his nut. "You got it."

Then Bucky's sharp hearing caught the first clipped complaints coming from down the hall.

"Remind me again who's name is on the burn unit? Okay, yes, it's technically my father, but I'm not just any visitor. We're a team. The Avengers, maybe you've heard of us...? I should have been-Oh, c'mon, he's Captain America. Hurt a flag burner, yes. A nurse, no."

Bucky smiled, despite himself. And Tony Stark appeared at the door, still arguing with an official looking woman, but walking straight into the room like he owned it, anyway.

Tony stopped short as he saw Bucky up and awake. "Go grab a meal, they said. No way he's waking up for at least thirty-six hours, they said." Tony looked like hell, with double black eyes. There was a white bandage over his nose, with more purple bruises peeping out.

Steve had brought the shield down right over Iron Man's face...

"Did you get a nose job?" Bucky asked, realizing he was staring. Even slightly bruised and swollen, Tony cut a dapper figure in the hospital room.

"Needed one. This is LA, you're not hip unless you're getting your nose redone every five years," Tony replied, and tilted his head to Sam, a question in his eyes.

"Sam's been keeping me company."

"Mr. Stark," Sam nodded, then looked at Bucky. "I'll get the doctor."

Tony hesitated as Sam left as if he wasn't sure of his place, but Bucky gestured him closer and grabbed his hand with the one not wrapped around his own ribs. "How's the team?" he asked, needing to hear it again.

"Worried about you," Tony said. "The mansion's... a total loss. We got swarmed, but Clint and Natasha came out with superficial cuts. Thor's peachy, and Bruce de-hulked halfway to Sacramento, but he'll be okay."

Bucky nodded, his head swimming. He wanted to ask about Steve, but he didn't dare. With his hand still gripping Tony's he tapped out basic Morse Code. WHY NOT SHIELD MEDICAL?

"You gave us a scare, old man," Tony said. The skin around his eyes pinched, but he dipped his head in a slight nod. His hand tapped out a reply on the inside of Bucky's wrist. JARVIS COMPROMISED WITH SHIELD CODES.

Well. Shit.

"So do I get to tell you I told you so?" Bucky asked. "Taunting the bad guy's an idiot move-" He cut off as he inhaled a little too sharply, which caused a coughing fit, which just hurt all over again. Of course that's when the doctor decided to come in, Sam Wilson in tow.

The doctor was a brisk, dispassionate man, but he was armed with only a stethoscope. He made Bucky breathe in and out, and clipped a device on Bucky's index finger, which somehow read his blood oxygen levels and heart rate.

"Your breath sounds have improved, Captain, but your blood oxygen saturation is at ninety-two percent. I'd like that to be higher." He helped Bucky remove the top of the hospital gown and hummed a little at the spot where some sort of tube had been stuck into his chest to reinflate a lung. Bucky tried not to shudder. Unbroken skin was covering it now, purple bruised, but whole. "This is healing nicely, but I'd like to keep you on an oxygen treatment. We'll also need further x-rays and blood-work-"

In his mind's eye, Bucky saw the medical procedures stack up, and him poked and prodded like a lab rat. "No," he said.

"Two days ago, you were suffering from a lacerated liver, two shattered ribs, broken collarbone, and a collapsed lung. Not to mention the blood loss. This is not to be taken lightly, Captain. It looked like someone tried to fillet you alive. If you were any other patient-."

"Well I ain't, and if I'm up on my feet I'm going to stay up."

"I assure you, none of this is invasive," the doctor said with an edge to his voice. "You had x-rays in the Second World War, I presume. They don't hurt-"

"I said no," Bucky growled. Then he added, just to be an asshole, "All I want are pants and a way to check out of this joint."

Tony, to his surprise, jumped to his defense. "He has the right to refuse treatment. I don't recommend it though, Buck. The drugs this man can prescribe you could-no? Okay, then compromise. I'm all about compromise. You," he pointed at Bucky, "agree to stay the rest of the night for observation. You," now to the doctor, "stick to non-invasive tests, which first get run by me or Natasha Romanoff before you ask him. Kapeesh?"

Bucky hesitated, but truthfully as much as he threatened it, he wasn't sure if he was up to getting out of bed, much less walking out of the hospital. Furthermore, Tony wouldn't suggest staying unless he were certain this place was secure. "If it'll make you happy," he grumbled, leaning back on the bed.

The doctor didn't look happy, and Tony shuffled him off to the side for a talk. Bucky caught the acronyms, "POW" and "PTSD" before he turned away.

Meanwhile, Sam Wilson had a look of bemusement on his face - common when dealing with Tony Stark for the first time. "It looks like you've got someone who has your back," he said. "I should check back on my friend. He'll never believe I met Captain America. But hey, if you ever feel like stopping by the VA and making me look good in front of my patients, don't be a stranger."

Bucky's momma didn't raise a fool. He saw it for what it was: a quiet invitation to 'talk about his feelings to a professional' and other phooey. "Thanks," he said to be polite. He and Sam shook hands again, and Sam left.

Bucky rested against the hard hospital pillow, feeling exhausted, wrung out. He toggled a button by the bed that made the top half sit up. It was easier to breathe that way. Forget Wi-Fi, this was the best of modern technology.

Closing his eyes, he ignored the doctor until he left.

Tony pulled up a visitor's chair beside the bed.

"Don't let 'em stick anything in me while I'm sleeping, okay?" Bucky muttered.

"There's a sex joke in there." Tony said.

A laugh burbled up and Bucky winced, pressing against his ribs. "Ah, damnit you asshole."

Tony's smile was fond. He reached over and squeezed Bucky's hand. "Get some sleep."

He was tired, but sleep was far from his mind. He opened his eyes and turned to Tony. "Can we talk?"

Tony went a little still. He cocked his head. "The talk? Which talk? The 'So we kissed and that happened, and I think we should do it again only without interruptions this time' talk? Or the 'we should stay friends' talk-"

"Tony." Bucky rolled his eyes. Then he gestured around the room. He tapped Morse code against Tony's wrist. BUGS?

"Oh. Yeah, probably not wise, unless I..." Tony pulled out his foldable StarkTablet from his pocket. He tapped a few commands, and the TV in the corner fuzzed out. "There we go. What's up, Cap?"

Bucky swallowed. "The Winter Soldier. Did he-did anyone-"

"He got away," Tony said with a wince.

Bucky closed his eyes, the relief making him dizzy. Natasha and Clint were ruthless. If either one had gotten a bead on him...

"Hey." Tony squeezed his wrist. "Look, I know I messed up. No one's surprised. But! I've been working on some new weaponry for the suit, some short range EMPs to counter his automail, or whatever that arm was made of. We'll get him, Bucky. We'll pin him to the wall-"

"No," Bucky said, his eyes opening. "No, shit, you can't. It's Steve."

"Steve? Steve who? Jobs?"

"Rogers," Bucky's throat felt dry. "I don't know how or... why, but-"

Tony's voice was flat. "Steve Rogers. The first Captain America, Steve Rogers? That Steve Rogers?" His eyes slid to one of the IV bags, probably wondering what drugs they'd put him on. Bucky bristled.

"I know how loony it sounds," he snapped. "But I swear on my mother's grave, it's him. And he knew me, or he thought he did. Kept asking who I was, like he was lost... and... and I..."

"Alright." Tony's voice held a note of forced lightness. "Steve Rogers, okay. I can work with that. Just... just lay back down. You're wheezing."

And so he was. Bucky smacked the back of his head against his pillow, irritated, feeling alarmingly close to tears.

"There, get comfortable," Tony said. "Okay? Good. You have to keep your oxygen saturation up, or you'll get a visit from Nurse Ratchet."

Bucky nodded. His eyes burned, and he didn't trust himself to speak. He couldn't meet Tony's eyes, didn't want to see worry or pity there. After a couple minutes, the worst passed. His chest didn't feel so tight.

"How is it possible?" he asked when he felt like he could speak without shaming himself with tears. "I saw him die. If I knew he was alive, I... I don't know."

There was an odd note in Tony's voice. "Would you have crashed the plane?"

"Wouldn't have had to," Bucky said. "Steve in my place would have figured out something - you should have seen him, Tony. That plane wouldn't have ever taken off." New York wouldn't have been bombed, he knew it in his core. "_He_ was Captain America."

"I know, babe. I know," Tony said, although there was no way he could. "Look, I'm going to fix this. I just... I'm going to fix it. Why don't you try to get some sleep? Let me run numbers."

He couldn't tell if it was a brush off or not, but Bucky was sore and tired. Emotionally wrung out. He closed his eyes and tried to make himself relax, but every time he drifted off he saw Steve falling off the train, Steve hovering above him, the knife sliding into his ribs. Steve going after Tony. Steve... Steve... Steve... He jerked back from the edge of sleep again and again.

Noticing, Tony reached up, putting his hand on Bucky's forehead and stroking back into his hair. His other hand tapped quietly on his tablet.

Tony's fingers were warm where they trailed against his scalp. He smelled good, too. A bit of cologne that blocked out the antiseptic hospital smell. Bucky tried to focus on that, and eventually slid into sleep.

* * *

**OoOoO**

* * *

Bucky watched himself sleep as if he were hovering from the ceiling. Tony, sprawled half in and half out of his chair, was resting next to Bucky's sleeping body, one arm draped over Bucky's chest as if afraid he was going to make a run for it.

Tony looked handsome in the morning sun. Even with the bruising mottling his face, and the fact that his busted nose had him snoring with his mouth open.

Bucky wanted to reach out and touch him, but he couldn't. He wasn't in his own body.

The hospital door opened.

Steve strode in, his long hair in a tangle, his blue eyes cold and merciless. They fixed on Bucky and Tony, and his metal hand reached to his side to draw out a long knife.

_NO_, Bucky wanted to scream, but he had no voice. He was only an observer._ NO, NO, NO._

* * *

**OoOoO**

* * *

Bucky woke with a snort. His eyes jerked to the door, but it was firmly shut.

It was a dream. Just a shitty, scary dream.

His subconscious had gotten a few things right: Tony was slumped half in, half out of his chair, and snoring. But he was jerk enough to rest his head on a corner of Bucky's pillow. And no, daylight was not doing him favors, with the mass of purple bruises on his face and a streak of drool on his chin.

Affection stole through Bucky anyway, helping shed the horror of the nightmare. The kisses they'd shared before Hell broke loose at the mansion had been like the best times he'd kissed dames, but slick and hot in a way that was only Tony. And the way Tony had climbed into Bucky's lap had definitely got his motor running.

It was a damn shame in so many ways that they'd been interrupted.

Reaching out, he carefully carded a hand through Tony's hair, making his bangs stick up on end. He trailed his thumb against Tony's temple - one of the few spots that were left unbruised.

Tony stirred, eyes half-opening. "Hey."

"Hey," Bucky replied, shifting closer. Tony smiled and tilted his chin up.

Their kiss was soft, almost chaste. Not enough. Bucky leaned in, seeking more.

Suddenly, Tony hissed and reeled back, his hand snapping up to cover his bruised nose. "Ow, damn it. Bad idea."

"No kidding, you two. Get a room," said a voice from above, coming from a nearby vent. Clint.

"Are you actually in the ductwork?" Tony grumped, straightening to glare upwards. "That is seriously something you think is okay outside the mansion? What were you going to do if my least favorite assassin showed up?"

A razor-sharp arrow head poked out of the vents in answer.

Bucky made himself sit up. He must have been on the mend because his ribs only ached, not felt like they were trying to split apart. Testing, he found he could raise his arm up almost all the way. The collarbone was a lot better. He looked at Tony. "Do you think that doc will let me out of this joint anytime soon?"

"Maybe. Probably not until afternoon. I have everyone up in the Westin for now, and Pepper's looking into rentals in SoCal big enough for six superheroes and my toys."

"What about-" Clint started.

"No. La Jolla's on the blacklist."

"Aw, surfing," Clint whined.

Tony held the weirdest grudge against that city. One day, Bucky was going to get the story, but until then they had work to do. Bucky glanced up to Clint. "Tell the others we need to assemble, here, I guess. I want to get started finding the Winter Soldier yesterday."

"You got it, Cap." There was a very quiet slithering sound - presumably, Clint working his way out of the vents. Then he was gone.

Tony had sat back and was fiddling with his tablet. He didn't quite look Bucky in the eye. "I'll get the doctor."

* * *

**OoOoO**

* * *

"These are awful," Bucky muttered as he scraped the bottom of his fifth jello cup. It had bits of fruit in it, though what kind of fruit he couldn't say.

Natasha eyed the crusts of the three bland sandwiches left on the plate in front of him. "Says the man who's plowing through hospital food like there's no tomorrow."

"I regrew part of my liver," Bucky said. "That gives a man an appetite." And this had taken off the bare edge of it, but it was enough. Wrinkling his nose, he pushed the empty cup away.

He was still in the hospital bed, though he'd made a trip to the adjoining bathroom and back this morning with only a moderate amount of pain. He still had no damn pants, though, and if the doctor didn't file the paperwork so he could leave in the next hour he was going to throw away his dignity and walk out, bare-assed.

As if on cue, the door to the hospital room opened and the rest of the Avengers walked in. Bruce was last, looking a little hunched and sheepish, but as far as Bucky was concerned he had nothing to be ashamed of. The Hulk had saved his life by getting him out of the crumbling mansion in a hurry.

Everyone greeted Bucky. (Thor's booming "You are looking well, Captain!" must have carried at least down the hall) and the relief in his team's eyes made him warm.

Tony adjusted a setting on his StarkTablet. "Okay kids. JARVIS has jammed all electronic frequencies in this room - we have a twenty minute window. Let's make it count."

"What were you saying about JARVIS's alarms being overridden with SHIELD codes?" Bucky asked pointedly. He hadn't been in the right frame of mind to go over that last night, but it had been eating at him all morning.

Natasha was the one to answer for him. "SHIELD has a leak," she said, her smoky voice dangerous. "Fury has been alerted, and seems to be taking it seriously - he spoke about getting Alexander Pierce from the World Council involved."

Tony snorted. His feelings about the World Council were clear, and Bucky didn't disagree. They'd been behind the plan - and cover-up - to nuke Los Angeles to stop the Chitauri invasion.

"Uh, do you think there could be a connection between SHIELD and the Winter Soldier?" Bruce asked softly.

Natasha and Clint both shook their heads. Tony looked pointedly at Bucky, an eyebrow raised as if to say 'you aren't getting a better opening'.

Bucky squared his shoulders and tried to look calm and authoritative - as much as he could sitting up in a hospital bed, in a flimsy gown. "About that... I know who the Winter Soldier is." And he made himself recount as much as he could about what had happened, and what Steve had said to him.

The ringing silence after he was done spoke volumes.

"No offense," Clint said, glancing to Natasha, "but you probably had a couple blows to the head during that fight, right?"

"Bucky-" Bruce started.

"I had my doubts, too," Tony said, then held up his hand as Bucky took a breath to protest. "Sorry, Buck, but you have been on all the tranquilizers over the last few days. So, last night I ran a facial comparison scan between Steve Rogers and the Winter Soldier."

He lifted his tablet. "It wasn't easy. Most of the footage from the original rebirth program had been classified and destroyed decades ago. There wasn't much left-"

"What about the old propaganda movies?" Bucky asked. "Steve said he starred in at least three of them."

Bruce was the one who answered. "There was a big fire at the LA film archive in the fifties. A lot of old movie reels were destroyed - not just the Captain America ones.

"Luckily for us, my old man was nothing but thorough. JARVIS found this in his private archives." Tony tapped something on his tablet and the overhead TV flickered to life.

And there Steve was, grainy and in black and white. Bucky, too. There was no sound to go along with the film, but Steve was chuckling and smiling his matinee smile.

Bucky remembered vividly when it was filmed. They'd been on leave in London, but Phillips wouldn't let them go unless Steve said a few words to the press. Bucky had been standing nearby, and a reporter had asked him, "Sergeant, you've known Captain America all your life. What do you think when you see him now?"

Bucky had looked over at Steve and laughed. "My friend."

Up on the screen, his mouth silently formed the words. Steve glanced at him and his eyes squint even further in a smile. Then the short clip repeated.

Clint let out a low whistle, "That's Steve Rogers? He's a big guy. He has two or three inches on you, Bucky."

Bucky's throat felt thick. "Didn't always used to be that way."

"Anyway, here's the interesting part." Tony swiped a few more commands on his tablet. The screen split and a second image appeared - this one in color. "This is from the other day."

It was a still image: The Winter Soldier was turned towards Tony, a moment before Tony had blasted him with his repulsers. His mask and sunglasses were gone. Even with the scruff around his jaw and the longer hair, the similar appearance was striking. Bucky heard an intake of breath from several people.

One of Tony's programs isolated both Steve's and the Winter Soldier's face - lines and targets measuring the spaces between their eyes, the shapes and structures of their noses and lips.

99.8 percent match, flashed at the bottom.

"Facial recognition isn't a perfect science, yet," Tony said as if in apology it wasn't 100%.

"That's... unusually high," Natasha admitted. "Could it be his son?"

"No." Bruce gently took the tablet from Tony to view the readings himself. "Not with this high of a match. This is on the level of identical twins. And there was no evidence of microsurgery scars?" he added to Tony.

"Not that JARVIS found. I mean, they could be hidden, but it's difficult."

"A clone?" Clint asked.

"He remembered me," Bucky said. "Or at least he thought he remembered something about me." He'd read up on cloning when he first got out of the ice: Dolly the sheep and Snoopy the dog, and all the advances scientists were making on bringing back Mammoths. "Clones don't have memories."

"That we know of," Natasha said, crossing her arms.

Thor leaned closer to look at the screen, then nodded once. "It does appear to be your shield brother, Captain."

"It's him," he confirmed. "But how? We-all the Commandos-we burned his body in the ravine. We sent his ashes on."

Bruce looked a little uncomfortable. Everyone shifted around, and even Natasha wouldn't quite meet his eyes.

"Was more than one person able to positively identify his body?" Bruce asked. "I read the reports. The fall was over four-hundred feet."

Bucky swallowed. "His head got... his head hit the rocks, on the way down." Thanks to his enhancements he still had a clear memory of it: The blood in Steve's hair, and a dent in his skull that Bucky still couldn't think about without feeling a little sick. "But his face was fine. And I wasn't the only one who ID'ed him. Dum-Dum, Morita, and all the others did, too. There wasn't a question."

Natasha was suddenly in his face, holding his chin with one hand.

"Nat-what-?"

She stared intently at him. "Tell me that again."

"What?" Bucky gripped her wrist, but her hand on his chin was firm.

"What did Steve look like when you found him?"

Steve's eyes had been open and staring. A look of vague amazement on his face. "Dead," Bucky said flatly.

Natasha turned to the others. "Do you see it?"

"Yeah," Tony said. Clint and Thor look puzzled. Bucky started to object, but Tony held up his hand. "Do me a favor. What did you eat the night before the mansion was attacked?"

Bucky thought for a second. "Chicken Curry."

"Normal reaction." Bruce said.

Finally, Bucky managed to bat Natasha's hand away. "Okay, what the hell?"

"It's an automatic response," she said. "People's eyes normally flick to the right or to the left when recalling a memory."

Clint snapped his fingers. "Hey, yeah. I remember seeing a show about that."

"Yours didn't when you were recalling Steve," Natasha said. "You stared straight ahead - no wavering at all."

"Could be the trauma," Bruce said. "He is experiencing an emotional reaction."

"'He' is right here," Bucky growled.

"I know," Clint said, a devilish glint in his eye he got when he poked beehives. "Try to think of something else traumatic, as a control. Tell us about Brooklyn."

"Tell us something traumatic," Tony repeated in derision. "You are the worst, Clint. That VA guy is going to come and kick your butt and I'm going to laugh."

And no way was Bucky going to wax on 'bout Brooklyn. "So my eyes aren't flicking. So what?"

Natasha shrugged. "It could be nothing. All it means is you're not accessing a memory the normal way."

"It could indicate an implanted or learned response," Tony suggested. "It's possible - there are reports of the Russians implanting memories in their operatives all the way back to the sixties."

A tingle ran up his spine. "Well, I ain't a Russian operative. Plus, someone would have had to do something to all of us Commandos, and for what?"

Tony shrugged, and again he didn't look Bucky in the eye. "For a chance at the most capable and deadly super soldier in the world, Cap? A product of Dr. Erskine, himself? No one knew at the time HYDRA's experimentation on you had turned up roses."

He looked at all of them. "But the memory is real. I can still recall everything. No gaps, no missing time." He'd gone through a phase of watching alien documentaries and supposed 'abductions' on the History Channel and learned all about missing time. "'sides, we're talking about nineteen forties tech, not sixties. I'm more familiar with it than all of you. We didn't have the technology to screw around with people's minds like that, back then."

"No," Clint said. The jerk-ass glint had faded from his eyes, leaving his expression grave. "But HYDRA did have the tesseract. We know she-it can alter people's minds."

"Aye," Thor said softly. "If the wielder wishes it."

Bucky dragged a hand down his face. He tried not to think about that day very much - it hurt. He made himself go through it now, scouring his memories for any hint anything was off. He and Dum-Dum had gathered the other Commandos. They'd repelled down the mountainside. The hike down had taken hours - worse, going up. They'd found Steve, and made the decision to burn the body among his brothers rather than let the scientists cut him to pieces and keep parts of him in jars. Bucky himself had carried Steve's ashes against his heart on the climb back up. Then he had personally sent Steve's remains by postage to Mother Superior, back at the Sacred Heart orphanage for safe keeping until Bucky could get back. That evening, Bucky had started drinking and hadn't stopped until Phillips told him he was to be the new Captain America.

It was all there, and if anything had been altered or changed he couldn't tell.

Bucky shook his head and glanced up to Thor. "Is there anyway to test for it?"

"Perhaps, but as you know, I'm not easily welcome back to Asgard. Any visit would have to be without the All Father's knowledge."

Bruce spoke. "Professor Xavier specializes in anomalies within the human mind."

"Good thinking, Jolly Green. I'll ask him. He owes me a favor." Tony dug in his pockets or his phone. Bucky nodded, numbly, but Tony was already on his way out, his phone to his ear.

"I will consult my mother. The tesseract contains memories of its own. Perhaps there is a way to access them," Thor said giving Bucky a respectful nod before he also left.

Natasha cocked an eyebrow at Clint, who nudged Bruce. The two men made their way out, Clint clapping Bucky on the shoulder as they did.

When the door closed, Natasha turned to Bucky, her arms crossed. "You're compromised," she said softly.

He sighed and leaned back. "You think?"

"Let Clint and I go after him. We've tried it your and Tony's way."

"Playing chicken was Tony's idea-"

"You didn't shut it down - and it made sense to try to call him in the open, but that won't work again." She dropped her arms and stepped closer. "You know Clint and I have different skill-sets. Let us do what we do best."

Bucky rubbed over his brow, thinking. But she had a point. "Okay, but I want check-ins at regular intervals."

She nodded, and turned to leave.

"And Natasha," he said. She stopped. "I know it's Steve, but even if you find otherwise- he comes in alive. You get it?"

She smiled and crossed the room to dot a kiss on his cheek. "Of course."


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes**: Thanks for reading! I think out of all the fics I've written this year, this one, and All The Leaves are Brown, are my favorites. I'm almost sorry to see it end.

Tempest In a Teapot was always about Bucky learning to live in the modern world as Captain America and the leader of the Avengers. It's been done, so it's time to finish this fic. However, there is a sequel coming which takes on Winter Soldier Steve. It'll be entitled A Sea Change and the first chapter should be out in a couple weeks.

* * *

Charles Xavier was willing to meet with Bucky, but with his student's finals on the way he wouldn't have time for an in-depth interview for at least a week. Bucky didn't like it, but wasn't all that anxious to leave LA where he'd known Steve was a few days ago, to go up to Xavier's school in Seattle just to hunt for ghosts.

With the house destroyed, there was no where to go once the hospital finally cut him loose, other than the room at the Westin that Tony had ordered.

Bucky shoulda figured it would be the freakin' penthouse suite.

"Clint and Natasha are one floor below," Tony said, while Bucky tried and failed not to boggle. Sure, he was used to the decadence of the Avenger's house, but this... this was on a whole new level.

The hotel staff had even put up an ice bucket and a bottle of champagne on top of the grand piano. Huh.

Back in the lobby, Tony tried to get Bucky to check his own meager bag of clothes - what they'd managed to pull from the ruins of the Malibu house - with a bellboy, but Bucky wouldn't have it. His collarbone and ribs were sore, but if he could stand on his own two feet, he could damn well lug his own things around. "Bruce and Thor are two floors down."

"You're bunking with me then?" Bucky asked as he marched to the windows, checking the sights. He'd gotten out of the habit while living in the Avengers house, but Steve had always been a good shot. Not the sharpshooter Bucky was (or Clint is) but with today's modern weapons that didn't matter as much.

Their suite was facing the sea, with no building or line of sight directly before them. Steve would have to come with another helicopter. Still possible, but not very likely.

Why hadn't he'd attacked while Bucky was laid up in the hospital? Steve had said his mission was to kill Tony, and he'd had plenty of opportunity since Malibu.

Maybe he was hesitating? Remembering something?

Bucky turned to Tony, a comment about Steve on his lips, then realized that Tony had never answered the first question. He stood about twenty feet away, staring in Bucky's direction. His body language was... Bucky couldn't suss it out for a few seconds: Exhausted, a little pained, and... unsure.

Unsure? _Tony?_

Of course, the second Bucky met his eyes, Tony straightened and smiled - cocky, but a little cracked around the edges. Just like he'd put on a mask.

"Dibs on the master suite." Tony said, turning. "You want the couch? Looks comfy."

Bucky didn't think. He strode forward, probably a lot faster than Tony figured he would because he actually jumped when Bucky caught his shoulder, stopping him.

"You know, I'm an old fashioned kind of guy," Bucky began.

Tony's shoulders actually slumped, and he didn't turn around to look at him. "Is the polite way of saying you think you made a mistake?"

Well, would you look at that. Bucky never thought he'd see Tony Stark insecure. It wasn't a look he liked on him. He dragged a thumb over the tight ridge of his shoulder. "It means, back when I used to like a girl, we'd go out dancing. Or I'd drag Steve along on a double-date." Bringing up Steve right now was a mistake - Bucky felt an unpleasant jolt shoot through his own stomach at the memory, and didn't miss the way Tony tensed up. Bucky tried again. "It means... I don't know exactly what I'm doing here, but I don't wanna be sleeping in different rooms." He paused. "Do you?"

Tony turned, then, his gaze sweeping Bucky up and down. "Better idea," he said and jerked his chin to the marble bathroom visible just beyond a half-opened door. "The bathtub there is big enough to host a party - I think I did, once."

"Yeah?" Bucky felt a grin stretch his lips and he forced himself to shove the thought of Steve away. Natasha and Clint would call the moment they had any solid lead, and it was selfish, but Bucky wanted to forget about what had become of his best friend, just for a few minutes. "Are you saying I smell like a hospital?"

"I want to get you off," Tony said in a direct way, meeting Bucky square in the eye as if in a challenge. "Maybe a couple times. I have theories about your refractory period. Am I wrong?"

Bucky swallowed, then stepped closer so they were nearly chest-to-chest. "You're not wrong." He wanted to kiss him, and if not for Tony's bruised face and healing nose, he would have.

But again, there was a hesitance in the air, and it wasn't coming from Bucky.

Tony's chin lifted as if in defiance. "I'm too old for you."

"You ass," Bucky said. "I am literally twice your age. Try again."

Tony looked like he wanted to say something else, but wonders upon wonders, actually choked it back. Looked painful.

Bucky leaned in, breathing over the shell of Tony's ear. "You about done trying to talk me out of a good time?"

He felt Tony shiver. "Sure," Tony said. "But heads up: I can't breathe through my nose right now."

Feeling a little fresh, Bucky reached down to grab Tony's ass, give him a friendly squeeze. "You're a genius. You'll think of something."

* * *

The ringing phone roused Bucky from a half-doze. Tony, who was using his shoulder as a pillow, winced a little and rolled onto his side, grumbling. Two days had seen much of the swelling in his face go down.

Two days of mostly staying in their room, when not scanning media reports for new Winter Soldier sightings (none), or calling Natasha and Clint for updates on their search (nothing).

Two days of either fucking Tony silly, or brooding about Steve. So yeah, they'd been in the bedroom. A lot. And the big bathtub again. And the kitchen.

The phone rang again, and Bucky's sleep-fogged mind pinged onto the fact that was Natasha's ringtone.

He snatched up the phone.

"You've found him," Bucky said in lieu of a hello.

"We've found where they're keeping him," she confirmed. "Clint and I will be there with intel in twenty minutes."

"Make sure you're decent!" Clint yelled, from the background.

Bucky was too preoccupied to feel even a glimmer of shame. "Got it." He swiped the phone off, then turned to Tony who was awake and watching him.

"Honeymoon's over?" Tony asked casually. One arm was over his head, showing off the long lines of his torso, the arc reactor centered in the middle.

"We're assembling in fifteen minutes." Bucky leaned down to give him a swift kiss. Tony tried to deepen it, but they didn't have time. Bucky leaned back, pulling gently on Tony's arm to get him to rise. "I'll call Bruce and Thor. Up and at 'em, Iron Man."

"Great. Yay. I always wanted to meet the first Captain America," Tony said lightly as he rose out of bed and padded, naked, to the bathroom.

Through the large penthouse windows, the sun was rising to the east. Bucky stared out to the middle distance - towards the direction of New York, for a long moment.

_We've found where they're keeping him_, Natasha had said. Her words were important, and that implied wherever Steve was, it wasn't voluntary.

"I'm coming for ya, Stevie," Bucky whispered to himself, trying and failing not to think of Steve's fingers - an inch away, and falling too fast to grab.

This time, Bucky swore, things were going to be different. He had seventy years to make up for, his team behind him as backup, a stunningly intelligent lover at his side.

Whatever happened next, Bucky was going to catch Steve, and drag him back from the edge.

The end.


End file.
